Return to Colloquia & Seminar listing
Exotic components of surface group representation varieties, and their Higgs bundle avatars
Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory| Speaker: | Steven Bradlow |
| Location: | 2112 MSB |
| Start time: | Wed, Oct 16 2019, 11:00AM |
Description
The Non Abelian Hodge Correspondence identifies moduli spaces of Higgs
bundles on a Riemann surface with representation varieties for the
surface fundamental group. For
representations into complex semisimple Lie groups, the components of
these spaces are labeled by obvious topological invariants, while
replacing the complex group by a real form can lead to the appearance of
extra `exotic’ components. We will describe this
phenomenon and what it signifies, as seen mostly from the perspective
of Higgs bundles.