The cohomology of the space of magnetic monopoles

Denote byX _q the reduced space ofSU ₂ monopoles of chargeq in ³. In this paper the cohomology ofX _q , the cohomology with compact supports ofX _q , and the image of the latter in the former are all calculated as representations of /q which acts onX ₂. This provides a non-trivial lower bound for theL ² cohomology ofX _q which is compatible with some conjectures of Sen. It is also shown that, granted some assumptions about the metric onX _q , itsL ² cohomology does not exceed this bound in the situation referred to in the paper as the coprime case.The work described here was carried out partly at the University of Texas at Austin.