Chern classes in Deligne cohomology for coherent analytic sheaves

In this article, we construct Chern classes in rational Deligne cohomology for coherent sheaves on a smooth complex compact manifold. We prove that these classes satisfy the functoriality property under pullbacks, the Whitney formula and the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem for projective morphisms between smooth complex compact manifolds.     

A relation between the parabolic Chern characters of the de Rham bundles

In this paper, we consider the weight i de Rham–Gauss–Manin bundles on a smooth variety arising from a smooth projective morphism for . We associate to each weight i de Rham bundle, a certain parabolic bundle on S and consider their parabolic Chern characters in the rational Chow groups, for a good compactification S of U. We show the triviality of the alternating sum of these parabolic bundles in the (positive degree) rational Chow groups. This removes the hypothesis of semistable reduction in the original result of this kind due to Esnault and Viehweg.     

Generic vanishing and minimal cohomology classes on abelian varieties

We establish a—and conjecture further—relationship between the existence of subvarieties representing minimal cohomology classes on principally polarized abelian varieties, and the generic vanishing of the cohomology of twisted ideal sheaves. The main ingredient is the Generic Vanishing criterion established in Pareschi G. and Popa M. (GV-sheaves, Fourier–Mukai transform, and Generic Vanishing. Preprint math.AG/0608127), based on the Fourier–Mukai transform. MP was partially supported by the NSF grant DMS 0500985 and by an AMS Centennial Fellowship.     

The strong Novikov conjecture for low degree cohomology

We show that for each discrete group Γ, the rational assembly map

Semistable and numerically effective principal (Higgs) bundles

We study Miyaoka-type semistability criteria for principal Higgs G-bundles E on complex projective manifolds of any dimension. We prove that E has the property of being semistable after pullback to any projective curve if and only if certain line bundles, obtained from some characters of the parabolic subgroups of G, are numerically effective. One also proves that these conditions are met for semistable principal Higgs bundles whose adjoint bundle has vanishing second Chern class.In a second part of the paper, we introduce notions of numerical effectiveness and numerical flatness for principal (Higgs) bundles, discussing their main properties. For (non-Higgs) principal bundles, we show that a numerically flat principal bundle admits a reduction to a Levi factor which has a flat Hermitian–Yang–Mills connection, and, as a consequence, that the cohomology ring of a numerically flat principal bundle with coefficients in R is trivial. To our knowledge this notion of numerical effectiveness is new even in the case of (non-Higgs) principal bundles.     

2-Gerbes bound by complexes of gr-stacks, and cohomology

We define 2-gerbes bound by complexes of braided group-like stacks. We prove a classification result in terms of hypercohomology groups with values in abelian crossed squares and cones of morphisms of complexes of length 3. We give an application to the geometric construction of certain elements in Hermitian Deligne cohomology groups.     

Characteristic classes of flat bundles, II

On a smooth varietyX defined over a fieldK of characteristic zero, one defines characteristic classes of bundles with an integrableK-connection in a group lifting the Chow group, which map, whenK is the field of complex numbers andX is proper, to Cheeger-Simons' secondary analytic invariants, compatibly with the cycle map in the Deligne cohomology.     

Chern classes of reflexive sheaves on normal surfaces

We define Chern classes of reflexive sheaves using Wahl's relative local Chern classes of vector bundles. The main result of the paper bounds contributions of singularities of a sheaf to the Riemann–Roch formula. Using it we are able to prove inequality in Wahl's conjecture on relative asymptotic RR formula for rank 2 vector bundles. Moreover, we prove that if Wahl's conjecture is true for a singularity then it is true for any its quotient. This implies Wahl's conjecture for quotient singularities and for quotients of cones over elliptic curves. Received March 2, 1998; in final form March 24, 1999 / Published online September 14, 2000     

On monodromies of a degeneration of irreducible symplectic Kähler manifolds

We study the monodromy operators on the Betti cohomologies associated to a good degeneration of irreducible symplectic manifold and we show that the unipotency of the monodromy operator on the middle cohomology is at least the half of the dimension. This implies that the “mildest” singular fiber of a good degeneration with non-trivial monodromy of irreducible symplectic manifolds is quite different from the generic degeneration of abelian varieties or Calabi–Yau manifolds.     

On the first cohomology of arithmetic groups

We study the restriction to smaller subgroups, of cohomology classes on arithmetic groups (possibly after moving the class by Hecke correspondences), especially in the context of first cohomology of arithmetic groups. We obtain vanishing results for the first cohomology of cocompact arithmetic lattices in SU(n,1) which arise from hermitian forms over division algebras D of degree p ², p an odd prime, equipped with an involution of the second kind. We show that it is not possible for a ‘naive’ restriction of cohomology to be injective in general. We also establish that the restriction map is injective at the level of first cohomology for non co-compact lattices, extending a result of Raghunathan and Venkataramana for co-compact lattices. Received: 14 September 2000 / Accepted: 6 June 2001     

Yang-Mills theory and Tamagawa numbers: the fascination of unexpected links in mathematics

Atiyah and Bott used equivariant Morse theory applied to theYang–Mills functional to calculate the Betti numbers ofmoduli spaces of vector bundles over a Riemann surface, rederivinginductive formulae obtained from an arithmetic approach whichinvolved the Tamagawa number of SL_n. This article attempts tosurvey and extend our understanding of this link between Yang–Millstheory and Tamagawa numbers, and to explain how methods usedover the last three decades to study the singular cohomologyof moduli spaces of bundles on a smooth projective curve over can be adapted to the setting of ¹-homotopy theory to studythe motivic cohomology of these moduli spaces over an algebraicallyclosed field.     

Differentiable and algebroid cohomology,Van Est isomorphisms,and characteristic classes

In the first section we discuss Morita invariance of differentiable/algebroid cohomology.In the second section we extend the Van Est isomorphism to groupoids. As a first application we clarify the connection between differentiable and algebroid cohomology (proved in degree 1, and conjectured in degree 2 by Weinstein-Xu [50]). As a second application we extend Van Ests argument for the integrability of Lie algebras. Applied to Poisson manifolds, this immediately implies the integrability criterion of Hector-Dazord [14].In the third section we describe the relevant characteristic classes of representations, living in algebroid cohomology, as well as their relation to the Van Est map. This extends Evens-Lu-Weinsteins characteristic class $\theta_{L}$ [20] (hence, in particular, the modular class of Poisson manifolds), and also the classical characteristic classes of flat vector bundles [2, 30].In the last section we describe applications to Poisson geometry.     

Twisted smooth Deligne cohomology

Deligne cohomology can be viewed as a differential refinement of integral cohomology, hence captures both topological and geometric information. On the other hand, it can be viewed as the simplest nontrivial version of a differential cohomology theory. While more involved differential cohomology theories have been explicitly twisted, the same has not been done to Deligne cohomology, although existence is known at a general abstract level. We work out what it means to twist Deligne cohomology, by taking degree one twists of both integral cohomology and de Rham cohomology. We present the main properties of the new theory and illustrate its use with examples and applications. Given how versatile Deligne cohomology has proven to be, we believe that this explicit and utilizable treatment of its twisted version will be useful.     

Non-classical Godeaux surfaces

A non-classical Godeaux surface is a minimal surface of general type with χ = K ² = 1 but with h ⁰¹ ≠ 0. We prove that such surfaces fulfill h ⁰¹ = 1 and they can exist only over fields of positive characteristic at most 5. Like non-classical Enriques surfaces they fall into two classes: the singular and the supersingular ones. We give a complete classification in characteristic 5 and compute their Hodge-, Hodge–Witt- and crystalline cohomology (including torsion). Finally, we give an example of a supersingular Godeaux surface in characteristic 5.     

Cycles, submanifolds, and structures on normal bundles

 We give explicit examples of degree 3 cohomology classes not Poincaré dual to submanifolds, and discuss the realisability of homology classes by submanifolds with Spin^c normal bundles. Received: 20 November 2001     

On some moduli spaces of stable vector bundles on cubic and quartic threefolds

We study certain moduli spaces of stable vector bundles of rank 2 on cubic and quartic threefolds. In many cases under consideration, it turns out that the moduli space is complete and irreducible and a general member has vanishing intermediate cohomology. In one case, all except one component of the moduli space has such vector bundles.     

Restriction varieties and geometric branching rules

This paper develops a new method for studying the cohomology of orthogonal flag varieties. Restriction varieties are subvarieties of orthogonal flag varieties defined by rank conditions with respect to (not necessarily isotropic) flags. They interpolate between Schubert varieties in orthogonal flag varieties and the restrictions of general Schubert varieties in ordinary flag varieties. We give a positive, geometric rule for calculating their cohomology classes, obtaining a branching rule for Schubert calculus for the inclusion of the orthogonal flag varieties in Type A flag varieties. Our rule, in addition to being an essential step in finding a Littlewood–Richardson rule, has applications to computing the moment polytopes of the inclusion of SO(n) in SU(n), the asymptotic of the restrictions of representations of SL(n) to SO(n) and the classes of the moduli spaces of rank two vector bundles with fixed odd determinant on hyperelliptic curves. Furthermore, for odd orthogonal flag varieties, we obtain an algorithm for expressing a Schubert cycle in terms of restrictions of Schubert cycles of Type A flag varieties, thereby giving a geometric (though not positive) algorithm for multiplying any two Schubert cycles.     

Paving Hessenberg varieties by affines

Regular nilpotent Hessenberg varieties form a family of subvarieties of the flag variety arising in the study of quantum cohomology, geometric representation theory, and numerical analysis. In this paper we construct a paving by affines of regular nilpotent Hessenberg varieties for all classical types, generalizing results of De Concini–Lusztig–Procesi and Kostant. This paving is in fact the intersection of a particular Bruhat decomposition with the Hessenberg variety. The nonempty cells of the paving and their dimensions are identified by combinatorial conditions on roots. We use the paving to prove these Hessenberg varieties have no odd-dimensional homology.      

Torus Bundles over Locally Symmetric Varieties Associated to Cocycles of Discrete Groups

 We construct torus bundles over locally symmetric varieties associated to cocycles in the cohomology group , where Γ is a discrete subgroup of a semisimple Lie group and L is a lattice in a real vector space. We prove that such a torus bundle has a canonical complex structure and that the space of holomorphic forms of the highest degree on a fiber product of such bundles is isomorphic to the space of mixed automorphic forms of a certain type. (Received 4 September 1998)