The geometry of maximal components of the PSp(4,R) character variety

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the structure and singularities of maximal components in the PSp(4,R) character variety, constructing invariant complex structures and explicit parameterizations, advancing understanding of surface group representations.

Contribution

It provides a mapping class group invariant complex structure and explicit fiber bundle parameterization of maximal components for PSp(4,R), including singularity analysis.

Findings

Explicit holomorphic fiber bundle parameterization over Teichmüller space.

Local description and geometric interpretation of singularities.

Holomorphic submersion of quotient spaces over moduli space.

Abstract

In this paper we describe the space of maximal components of the character variety of surface group representations into PSp(4,R) and Sp(4,R). For every rank 2 real Lie group of Hermitian type, we construct a mapping class group invariant complex structure on the maximal components. For the groups PSp(4,R) and Sp(4,R), we give a mapping class group invariant parameterization of each maximal component as an explicit holomorphic fiber bundle over Teichm\"uller space. Special attention is put on the connected components which are singular, we give a precise local description of the singularities and their geometric interpretation. We also describe the quotient of the maximal components for PSp(4,R) and Sp(4,R) by the action of the mapping class group as a holomorphic submersion over the moduli space of curves. These results are proven in two steps, first we use Higgs bundles to give a non-mapping class group equivariant parameterization, then we prove an analogue of Labourie's conjecture for maximal PSp(4,R) representations.