Degenerations of the moduli spaces of vector bundles on curves I

LetY be a smooth projective curve degenerating to a reducible curveX with two components meeting transversally at one point. We show that the moduli space of vector bundles of rank two and odd determinant on Ydegenerates to a moduli space onX which has nice properties, in particular, it has normal crossings. We also show that a nice degeneration exists when we fix the determinant. We give some conjectures concerning the degeneration of moduli space of vector bundles onY with fixed determinant and arbitrary rank.     

A note on 1-cycles on the moduli space of rank-2 bundles over a curve

Over a smooth complex projective curve of genus ≥3, we study 1-cycles on the moduli space of rank-2 stable vector bundles with fixed determinant of degree 1. We show the first Chow group of the moduli space is isomorphic to the zeroth Chow group of the curve.     

On Framed Instanton Bundles and Their Deformations

We consider a compact twistor space P and assume that there is a surface S ⊂ P, which has degree one on twistor fibres and contains a twistor fibre F, e.g. P a LeBrun twistor space ([20], [18]). Similar to [6] and [5] we examine the restriction of an instanton bundle V equipped with a fixed trivialization along F to a framed vector bundle over (S, F). First we develope inspired by [13] a suitable deformation theory for vector bundles over an analytic space framed by a vector bundle over a subspace of arbitrary codimension. In the second section we describe the restriction as a smooth natural transformation into a fine moduli space. By considering framed U(r)‐instanton bundles as a real structure on framed instanton bundles over P, we show that the bijection between isomorphism classes of framed U(r)‐instanton bundles and isomorphism classes of framed vector bundles over (S, F) due to [5] is actually an isomorphism of moduli spaces.     

A Universal Construction for Moduli Spaces of Decorated Vector Bundles over Curves

Let $X$ be a smooth projective curve over the field of complex numbers, and fix a homogeneous representation $\rho\colon \mathop{\rm GL}(r)\rightarrow \mathop{\rm GL}(V)$. Then one can associate to every vector bundle $E$ of rank $r$ over $X$ a vector bundle $E_\rho$ with fibre $V$. We would like to study triples $(E,L,\phi)$ where $E$ is a vector bundle of rank $r$ over $X$, $L$ is a line bundle over $X$, and $\phi\colon E_\rho\rightarrow L$ is a nontrivial homomorphism. This setup comprises well known objects such as framed vector bundles, Higgs bundles, and conic bundles. In this paper, we will formulate a general (parameter dependent) semistability concept for such triples, which generalizes the classical Hilbert--Mumford criterion, and we establish the existence of moduli spaces for the semistable objects. In the examples which have been studied so far, our semistability concept reproduces the known ones. Therefore, our results give in particular a unified construction for many moduli spaces considered in the literature.     

On the intersection theory of the moduli space of rank two bundles

We give an algebro-geometric derivation of the known intersection theory on the moduli space of stable rank 2 bundles of odd degree over a smooth curve of genus g. We lift the computation from the moduli space to a Quot scheme, where we obtain the intersections via equivariant localization with respect to a natural torus action.     

On the Motive of Moduli Spaces of Rank Two Vector Bundles over a Curve

We study the motive of the moduli spaces of rank two vector bundles on a curve. In the smooth case we obtain the Hodge numbers, intermediate Jacobians and number of points over a finite field as corollaries. In the singular case our computations yield the Poincaré–Hodge polynomial of Seshadri's smooth model.     

Sur la stabilité du fibré de PicardOn the stability of the Picard bundle

We study the stability of the Picard bundle on the moduli space of stable vector bundles of fixed rank and determinant, over an irreducible, smooth, algebraic curve of genus g?2. To cite this article: V. Savin, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 334 (2002) 885–888.     

Opers and theta functions

We construct natural maps (the Klein and Wirtinger maps) from moduli spaces of semistable vector bundles over an algebraic curve X to affine spaces, as quotients of the nonabelian theta linear series. We prove a finiteness result for these maps over generalized Kummer varieties (moduli space of torus bundles), leading us to conjecture that the maps are finite in general. The conjecture provides canonical explicit coordinates on the moduli space. The finiteness results give low-dimensional parametrizations of Jacobians (in for generic curves), described by 2Θ functions or second logarithmic derivatives of theta.We interpret the Klein and Wirtinger maps in terms of opers on X. Opers are generalizations of projective structures, and can be considered as differential operators, kernel functions or special bundles with connection. The matrix opers (analogues of opers for matrix differential operators) combine the structures of flat vector bundle and projective connection, and map to opers via generalized Hitchin maps. For vector bundles off the theta divisor, the Szegö kernel gives a natural construction of matrix oper. The Wirtinger map from bundles off the theta divisor to the affine space of opers is then defined as the determinant of the Szegö kernel. This generalizes the Wirtinger projective connections associated to theta characteristics, and the associated Klein bidifferentials.     

The Boden-Hu conjecture holds precisely up to rank 8

We consider moduli schemes of vector bundles over a smooth projective curve endowed with parabolic structures over a marked point. Boden and Hu observed that a slight variation of the weights leads to a desingularisation of the moduli scheme, and they conjectured that one can always obtain a small resolution this way. The present text proves this conjecture in some cases (including all bundles of rank up to eight) and gives counterexamples in all other cases (in particular in every rank beyond eight). The main tool is a generalisation of Ext-groups involving more than two quasiparabolic bundles.Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 14H60, 14D20     

A generalization of Higgs bundles to higher dimensional varieties

Let X be a smooth n-dimensional projective variety defined over and let L be a line bundle on X. In this paper we shall construct a moduli space parametrizing -cohomology L-twisted Higgs pairs, i.e., pairs where E is a vector bundle on X and . If we take , the canonical line bundle on X, the variety is canonically identified with the cotangent bundle of the smooth locus of the moduli space of stable vector bundles on X and, as such, it has a canonical symplectic structure. We prove that, in the general case, in correspondence to the choice of a non-zero section , one can define, in a natural way, a Poisson structure on . We also analyze the relations between this Poisson structure on and the canonical symplectic structure of the cotangent bundle to the smooth locus of the moduli space of parabolic bundles over X, with parabolic structure over the divisor D defined by the section s. These results generalize to the higher dimensional case similar results proved in [Bo1] in the case of curves. Received November 4, 1997; in final form May 28, 1998     

Rationality of Moduli Spaces of Parabolic Bundles

The moduli space of parabolic bundles with fixed determinantover a smooth curve of genus greater than one is proved to berational whenever one of the multiplicities of the quasi-parabolicstructure equals one. This gives a new proof that the modulispace of vector bundles of coprime rank and degree is stablyrational, a result originally due to Ballico, and the boundon the level is strong enough to deduce rationality in manycases, extending results of Newstead.     

Poincaré families of <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>-bundles on a curve

Let G be a reductive group over an algebraically closed field k. Consider the moduli space of stable principal G-bundles on a smooth projective curve C over k. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of Poincaré bundles over open subsets of this moduli space, and compute the orders of the corresponding obstruction classes. This generalizes the previous results of Newstead, Ramanan and Balaji–Biswas–Nagaraj–Newstead to all reductive groups, to all topological types of bundles, and also to all characteristics.     

Limits of rank 4 Azumaya algebras and applications to desingularization

It is shown that the schematic image of the scheme of Azumaya algebra structures on a vector bundle of rank 4 over any base scheme is separated, of finite type, smooth of relative dimension 13 and geometrically irreducible over that base and that this construction base-changes well. This fully generalizes Seshadri’s theorem in [16] that the variety of specializations of (2 x 2)-matrix algebras is smooth in characteristic ≠ 2. As an application, a construction of Seshadri in [16] is shown in a characteristic-free way to desingularize the moduli space of rank 2 even degree semi-stable vector bundles on a complete curve. As another application, a construction of Nori over ℤ (Appendix, [16]) is extended to the case of a normal domain which is a universally Japanese (Nagata) ring and is shown to desingularize the Artin moduli space [1] of invariants of several matrices in rank 2. This desingularization is shown to have a good specialization property if the Artin moduli space has geometrically reduced fibers — for example this happens over ℤ. Essential use is made of Kneser’s concept [8] of ‘semi-regular quadratic module’. For any free quadratic module of odd rank, a formula linking the half-discriminant and the values of the quadratic form on its radical is derived.     

Determinant line bundle on moduli space of parabolic bundles

In Biswas and Raghavendra (Proc Indian Acad Sci (Math Sci) 103:41–71, 1993; Asian J Math 2:303–324, 1998), a parabolic determinant line bundle on a moduli space of stable parabolic bundles was constructed, along with a Hermitian structure on it. The construction of the Hermitian structure was indirect: The parabolic determinant line bundle was identified with the pullback of the determinant line bundle on a moduli space of usual vector bundles over a covering curve. The Hermitian structure on the parabolic determinant bundle was taken to be the pullback of the Quillen metric on the determinant line bundle on the moduli space of usual vector bundles. Here a direct construction of the Hermitian structure is given. For that we need to establish a version of the correspondence between the stable parabolic bundles and the Hermitian–Einstein connections in the context of conical metrics. Also, a recently obtained parabolic analog of Faltings’ criterion of semistability plays a crucial role.     

A stability condition for line bundles on reducible varieties

Over a family of varieties with singular special fiber, the relative Picard functor (i.e. the moduli space of line bundles) may fail to be compact. We propose a stability condition for line bundles on reducible varieties that is aimed at compactifying it. This stability condition generalizes the notion of ‘balanced multidegree’ used by Caporaso in compactifying the relative Picard functor over families of curves. Unlike the latter, it is defined ‘asymptotically’; an important theme of this paper is that although line bundles on higher-dimensional varieties are more complicated than those on curves, their behavior in terms of stability asymptotically approaches that of line bundles on curves.Using this definition of stability, we prove that over a one-parameter family of varieties having smooth total space, any line bundle on the generic fiber can be extended to a unique semistable line bundle on the (possibly reducible) special fiber, provided the special fiber is not too complicated in a combinatorial sense.     

Cohomology of the moduli of parabolic vector bundles

The purpose of this paper is to compute the Betti numbers of the moduli space ofparabolic vector bundles on a curve (see Seshadri [7], [8] and Mehta & Seshadri [4]), in the case where every semi-stable parabolic bundle is necessarily stable. We do this by generalizing the method of Atiyah and Bott [1] in the case of moduli of ordinary vector bundles. Recall that (see Seshadri [7]) the underlying topological space of the moduli of parabolic vector bundles is the space of equivalence classes of certain unitary representations of a discrete subgroup Γ which is a lattice in PSL (2,R). (The lattice Γ need not necessarily be co-compact). While the structure of the proof is essentially the same as that of Atiyah and Bott, there are some difficulties of a technical nature in the parabolic case. For instance the Harder-Narasimhan stratification has to be further refined in order to get the connected strata. These connected strata turn out to have different codimensions even when they are part of the same Harder-Narasimhan strata. If in addition to ‘stable = semistable’ the rank and degree are coprime, then the moduli space turns out to be torsion-free in its cohomology. The arrangement of the paper is as follows. In § 1 we prove the necessary basic results about algebraic families of parabolic bundles. These are generalizations of the corresponding results proved by Shatz [9]. Following this, in § 2 we generalize the analytical part of the argument of Atiyah and Bott (§ 14 of [1]). Finally in § 3 we show how to obtain an inductive formula for the Betti numbers of the moduli space. We illustrate our method by computing explicitly the Betti numbers in the special case of rank = 2, and one parabolic point.     

Quasi-parabolic Siegel formula

The result of Siegel that the Tamagawa number ofSL _r over a function field is 1 has an expression purely in terms of vector bundles on a curve, which is known as the Siegel formula. We prove an analogous formula for vector bundles with quasi-parabolic structures. This formula can be used to calculate the Betti numbers of the moduli of parabolic vector bundles using the Weil conjuctures An erratum to this article is available at .     

Stable bundles with torsion Chern classes on non-Kählerian elliptic surfaces

If π:X→B is a non-Kählerian elliptic surface with generic fibreF, the moduli space of stable holomorphic vector bundles with torsion Chern classes onX has an induced fibred structure with base Pic^o(F) and the moduli space of stable parabolic bundles onB ^orb as fibre. This is specific to the non-Kähler case.     

Hitchin System on Singular Curves

We study the Hitchin system on singular curves. We consider curves obtainable from the projective line by matching at several points or by inserting cusp singularities. It appears that on such singular curves, all basic ingredients of Hitchin integrable systems (moduli space of vector bundles, dualizing sheaf, Higgs field, etc.) can be explicitly described, which can be interesting in itself. Our main result is explicit formulas for the Hitchin Hamiltonians. We also show how to obtain the Hitchin integrable system on such curves by Hamiltonian reduction from a much simpler system on a finite-dimensional space. We pay special attention to a degenerate curve of genus two for which we find an analogue of the Narasimhan–Ramanan parameterization of the moduli space of SL(2) bundles as well as the explicit expressions for the symplectic structure and Hitchin-system Hamiltonians in these coordinates. We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach by rederiving the rational and trigonometric Calogero–Moser systems, which are obtained from Hitchin systems on curves with a marked point and with the respective cusp and node.