Topology of moduli spaces of free group representations in real reductive groups

DOI10.1515/FORUM-2014-0049MaRDI QIDQ254053zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Sean Lawton, Ana Cristina Casimiro, Carlos Florentino, André G. Oliveira

Publication date 8 March 2016

Published in Forum Mathematicum (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.3603

zbMATH Keywords

character varietiesreal reductive groupsrepresentation varieties

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Algebraic moduli problems, moduli of vector bundles (14D20) Group actions on varieties or schemes (quotients) (14L30) Topology of real algebraic varieties (14P25) Free nonabelian groups (20E05) Linear algebraic groups over the reals, the complexes, the quaternions (20G20) Complex-analytic moduli problems (32G13)

Abstract: Let $G$ be a real reductive algebraic group with maximal compact subgroup $K$, and let $F_r$ be a rank $r$ free group. We show that the space of closed orbits in $mathrmHom(F_r,G)/G$ admits a strong deformation retraction to the orbit space $mathrmHom(F_r,K)/K$. In particular, all such spaces have the same homotopy type. We compute the Poincar'e polynomials of these spaces for some low rank groups $G$, such as $mathrmSp(4,mathbbR)$ and $mathrmU(2,2)$. We also compare these real moduli spaces to the real points of the corresponding complex moduli spaces, and describe the geometry of many examples.

Recommendations

• The topology of moduli spaces of free group representations
• The topology of parabolic character varieties of free groups
• The topology of nilpotent representations in reductive groups and their maximal compact subgroups.
• The topology of moduli spaces of group representations: the case of compact surface
• Homotopy groups of free group character varieties

Cited in

(11)

• Rank 1 character varieties of finitely presented groups
• Serre polynomials of \(\mathrm{SL}_n\)- and \(\mathrm{PGL}_n\)-character varieties of free groups
• Character varieties for real forms
• Invariants of pairs in \(\mathrm{SL}(4, \mathbb {C})\) and \(\mathrm{SU}(3, 1)\)
• Geometry of \(\mathrm{SU}(3)\)-character varieties of torus knots
• Dimension of representation and character varieties for two- and three-orbifolds
• Flawed groups and the topology of character varieties
• The topology of nilpotent representations in reductive groups and their maximal compact subgroups.
• Bad representations and homotopy of character varieties
• Fundamental groups of character varieties: surfaces and tori
• Fundamental group of moduli spaces of representations

This page was built for publication: Topology of moduli spaces of free group representations in real reductive groups

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q254053)