Representations with Weighted Frames and Framed Parabolic Bundles

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CJM-2000-052-4
Canad. J. Math. 52(2000), 1235-1268

  Published:2000-12-01
 Printed: Dec 2000

There is a well-known correspondence (due to Mehta and Seshadri in the unitary case, and extended by Bhosle and Ramanathan to other groups), between the symplectic variety $M_h$ of representations of the fundamental group of a punctured Riemann surface into a compact connected Lie group~$G$, with fixed conjugacy classes $h$ at the punctures, and a complex variety ${\cal M}_h$ of holomorphic bundles on the unpunctured surface with a parabolic structure at the puncture points. For $G = \SU(2)$, we build a symplectic variety $P$ of pairs (representations of the fundamental group into $G$, ``weighted frame'' at the puncture points), and a corresponding complex variety ${\cal P}$ of moduli of ``framed parabolic bundles'', which encompass respectively all of the spaces $M_h$, ${\cal M}_h$, in the sense that one can obtain $M_h$ from $P$ by symplectic reduction, and ${\cal M}_h$ from ${\cal P}$ by a complex quotient. This allows us to explain certain features of the toric geometry of the $\SU(2)$ moduli spaces discussed by Jeffrey and Weitsman, by giving the actual toric variety associated with their integrable system.