This paper explores the cohomological consequences of the existence of moduli spaces for flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity at infinity and gives unconditional proofs. Namely, we prove the existence of a universal bound for the dimension of de Rham cohomology of flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity on surfaces. In any dimension, we prove a Lefschetz recognition principle stating the existence of hyperplane sections distinguishing flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity after restriction. We obtain in any dimension a universal bound for the degrees of the turning loci of flat bundles with bounded rank and irregularity. Along the way, we introduce a new operation on the group of $b$-divisors on a smooth surface (the partial discrepancy) and prove a closed formula for the characteristic cycles of flat bundles on surfaces in terms of the partial discrepancy of the irregularity $b$-divisor attached to any flat bundle by Kedlaya.

Using $L^2$-methods, we prove a vanishing theorem for tame harmonic bundles over quasi-compact Kähler manifolds in a very general setting. As a special case, we give a completely new proof of the Kodaira-type vanishing theorems for Higgs bundles due to Arapura. To prove our vanishing theorem, we construct a fine resolution of the Dolbeault complex for tame harmonic bundles via the complex of sheaves of $L^2$-forms, and we establish the Hörmander $L^2$-estimate and solve $(\bar {\partial }_E+\theta )$-equations for Higgs bundles $(E,\theta )$.

We construct a functor associating a cubical set to a (simple) graph. We show that cubical sets arising in this way are Kan complexes, and that the A-groups of a graph coincide with the homotopy groups of the associated Kan complex. We use this to prove a conjecture of Babson, Barcelo, de Longueville, and Laubenbacher from 2006, and a strong version of the Hurewicz theorem in discrete homotopy theory.

We show that the image of a properly embedded Legendrian submanifold under a homeomorphism that is the $C^0$-limit of a sequence of contactomorphisms supported in some fixed compact subset is again Legendrian, if the image of the submanifold is smooth. In proving this, we show that any closed non-Legendrian submanifold of a contact manifold admits a positive loop and we provide a parametric refinement of the Rosen–Zhang result on the degeneracy of the Chekanov–Hofer–Shelukhin pseudo-norm for properly embedded non-Legendrians.

We give sharp point-wise bounds in the weight-aspect on fourth moments of modular forms on arithmetic hyperbolic surfaces associated to Eichler orders. Thereby, we strengthen a result of Xia and extend it to co-compact lattices. We realize this fourth moment by constructing a holomorphic theta kernel on $\mathbf {G} \times \mathbf {G} \times \mathbf {SL}_{2}$, for $\mathbf {G}$ an indefinite inner form of $\mathbf {SL}_2$ over $\mathbb {Q}$, based on the Bergman kernel, and considering its $L^2$-norm in the Weil variable. The constructed theta kernel further gives rise to new elementary theta series for integral quadratic forms of signature $(2,2)$.