We introduce the notion of a Nakajima bundle representation. Given a labelled quiver and a variety or manifold X, such a representation involves an assignment of a complex vector bundle on X to each node of the double quiver; to the edges, we assign sections of, and connections on, associated twisted bundles. We for the most part restrict attention in our development to algebraic curves or Riemann surfaces. Our construction simultaneously generalizes ordinary Nakajima quiver representations on the one hand and quiver bundles on the other hand. These representations admit gauge-theoretic characterizations, analogous to the Atiyah–Drinfel’d–Hitchin–Manin equations in the original work of Nakajima, allowing for the construction of these generalized quiver varieties using a reduction procedure with moment maps. We study the deformation theory of Nakajima bundle representations, prove a Hitchin–Kobayashi correspondence between such representations and stable quiver bundles, examine the natural torus action on the resulting moduli varieties, and comment on scenarios where the variety is hyperkähler. Finally, we produce concrete examples that recover known moduli spaces.

We construct moduli stacks of stable sheaves for surfaces fibered over marked nodal curves by using expanded degenerations. These moduli stacks carry a virtual class and therefore give rise to enumerative invariants. In the case of a surface with two irreducible components glued along a smooth divisor, we prove a degeneration formula that relates the moduli space associated to the surface with the relative spaces associated to the two components. For a smooth surface and no markings, our notion of stability agrees with slope stability with respect to a suitable choice of polarization. We apply our results to compute elliptic genera of moduli spaces of stable sheaves on some elliptic surfaces.

We study the moduli stacks of slope-semistable torsion-free coherent sheaves that admit reflexive, respectively, locally free, Seshadri graduations on a smooth projective variety. We show that they are open in the stack of coherent sheaves and that they admit good moduli spaces when the field characteristic is zero. In addition, in the locally free case we prove that the resulting moduli space is a quasi-projective scheme.

We use a graph to define a new stability condition for algebraic moduli spaces of rational curves. We characterise when the tropical compactification of the moduli space agrees with the theory of geometric tropicalisation. The characterisation statement occurs only when the graph is complete multipartite.

Let $X$ be a very general Gushel–Mukai (GM) variety of dimension $n\geq 4$, and let $Y$ be a smooth hyperplane section. There are natural pull-back and push-forward functors between the semi-orthogonal components (known as the Kuznetsov components) of the derived categories of $X$ and $Y$. In this paper, we prove that the Bridgeland stability of objects is preserved by both pull-back and push-forward functors. We then explore various applications of this result, such as constructing an eight-dimensional smooth family of Lagrangian subvarieties for each moduli space of stable objects in the Kuznetsov component of a general GM fourfold and proving the projectivity of the moduli spaces of semistable objects of any class in the Kuznetsov component of a general GM threefold, as conjectured by Perry, Pertusi, and Zhao.

We construct moduli spaces of framed logarithmic connections and also moduli spaces of framed parabolic connections. It is shown that these moduli spaces possess a natural algebraic symplectic structure. We also give an upper bound of the transcendence degree of the algebra of regular functions on the moduli space of parabolic connections.

For a smooth projective surface $X$ satisfying $H_1(X,\mathbb{Z}) = 0$ and $w \in H^2(X,\mu _r)$, we study deformation invariants of the pair $(X,w)$. Choosing a Brauer–Severi variety $Y$ (or, equivalently, Azumaya algebra $\mathcal{A}$) over $X$ with Stiefel–Whitney class $w$, the invariants are defined as virtual intersection numbers on suitable moduli spaces of stable twisted sheaves on $Y$ constructed by Yoshioka (or, equivalently, moduli spaces of $\mathcal{A}$-modules of Hoffmann–Stuhler).

We show that the invariants do not depend on the choice of $Y$. Using a result of de Jong, we observe that they are deformation invariants of the pair $(X,w)$. For surfaces with $h^{2,0}(X) \gt 0$, we show that the invariants can often be expressed as virtual intersection numbers on Gieseker–Maruyama–Simpson moduli spaces of stable sheaves on $X$. This can be seen as a ${\rm PGL}_r$–${\rm SL}_r$ correspondence.

As an application, we express ${\rm SU}(r) / \mu _r$ Vafa–Witten invariants of $X$ in terms of ${\rm SU}(r)$ Vafa–Witten invariants of $X$. We also show how formulae from Donaldson theory can be used to obtain upper bounds for the minimal second Chern class of Azumaya algebras on $X$ with given division algebra at the generic point.

We introduce a double framing construction for moduli spaces of quiver representations. This allows us to reduce certain sheaf cohomology computations involving the universal representation, to computations involving line bundles, making them amenable to methods from geometric invariant theory. We will use this to show that in many good situations the vector fields on the moduli space are isomorphic as vector spaces to the first Hochschild cohomology of the path algebra. We also show that considering the universal representation as a Fourier–Mukai kernel in the appropriate sense gives an admissible embedding of derived categories.

We compute odd-degree genus 1 quasimap and Gromov–Witten invariants of moduli spaces of Higgs ${\rm{S}}{{\rm{L}}_2}$-bundles on a curve of genus $g \geqslant 2$. We also compute certain invariants for all prime ranks. This proves some parts of the author’s conjectures on quasimap invariants of moduli spaces of Higgs bundles. More generally, our methods provide a computation scheme for genus 1 quasimap and Gromov–Witten invariants in the case when degrees of maps are coprime to the rank. This requires an analysis of the localisation formula for certain Quot schemes parametrising higher-rank quotients on an elliptic curve. Invariants for degrees that are not coprime to the rank exhibit a very different structure for a reason that we explain.

Following the work of Mazzeo–Swoboda–Weiß–Witt [Duke Math. J. 165 (2016), 2227–2271] and Mochizuki [J. Topol. 9 (2016), 1021–1073], there is a map $\overline{\Xi }$ between the algebraic compactification of the Dolbeault moduli space of ${\rm SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$ Higgs bundles on a smooth projective curve coming from the $\mathbb{C}^\ast$ action and the analytic compactification of Hitchin’s moduli space of solutions to the $\mathsf{SU}(2)$ self-duality equations on a Riemann surface obtained by adding solutions to the decoupled equations, known as ‘limiting configurations’. This map extends the classical Kobayashi–Hitchin correspondence. The main result that this article will show is that $\overline{\Xi }$ fails to be continuous at the boundary over a certain subset of the discriminant locus of the Hitchin fibration.

KSB stability holds at codimension $1$ points trivially, and it is quite well understood at codimension $2$ points because we have a complete classification of $2$-dimensional slc singularities. We show that it is automatic in codimension $3$.

Given a connected reductive algebraic group G over an algebraically closed field, we investigate the Picard group of the moduli stack of principal G-bundles over an arbitrary family of smooth curves.

We generalize Illusie’s definition of the Atiyah class to complexes with quasi-coherent cohomology on arbitrary algebraic stacks. We show that this gives a global obstruction theory for moduli stacks of complexes in algebraic geometry without derived methods. We give a similar generalization of the reduced Atiyah class, and we show various useful properties for working with Atiyah classes, such as compatibilities between the reduced and ordinary Atiyah class, and compatibility with tensor products and determinants.

We study a quiver description of the nested Hilbert scheme of points on the affine plane and its higher rank generalization – that is, the moduli space of flags of framed torsion-free sheaves on the projective plane. We show that stable representations of the quiver provide an ADHM-like construction for such moduli spaces. We introduce a natural torus action and use equivariant localization to compute some of their (virtual) topological invariants, including the case of compact toric surfaces. We conjecture that the generating function of holomorphic Euler characteristics for rank one is given in terms of polynomials in the equivariant weights, which, for specific numerical types, coincide with (modified) Macdonald polynomials. From the physics viewpoint, the quivers we study describe a class of surface defects in four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories in terms of nested instantons.

Let ${\mathcal {R}} \subset \mathbb {P}^1_{\mathbb {C}}$ be a finite subset of markings. Let G be an almost simple simply-connected algebraic group over $\mathbb {C}$. Let $K_G$ denote the compact real form of G. Suppose for each lasso l around the marked point, a conjugacy class $C_l$ in $K_G$ is prescribed. The aim of this paper is to give verifiable criteria for the existence of an irreducible homomorphism of $\pi _{1}(\mathbb P^1_{\mathbb {C}} \,{\backslash}\, {\mathcal {R}})$ into $K_G$ such that the image of l lies in $C_l$.

Let $X$ and $Y$ be compact hyper-Kähler manifolds deformation equivalent to the Hilbert scheme of length $n$ subschemes of a $K3$ surface. A class in $H^{p,p}(X\times Y,{\mathbb {Q}})$ is an analytic correspondence, if it belongs to the subring generated by Chern classes of coherent analytic sheaves. Let $f:H^2(X,{\mathbb {Q}})\rightarrow H^2(Y,{\mathbb {Q}})$ be a rational Hodge isometry with respect to the Beauville–Bogomolov–Fujiki pairings. We prove that $f$ is induced by an analytic correspondence. We furthermore lift $f$ to an analytic correspondence $\tilde {f}: H^*(X,{\mathbb {Q}})[2n]\rightarrow H^*(Y,{\mathbb {Q}})[2n]$, which is a Hodge isometry with respect to the Mukai pairings and which preserves the gradings up to sign. When $X$ and $Y$ are projective, the correspondences $f$ and $\tilde {f}$ are algebraic.

Let $\alpha \colon X \to Y$ be a finite cover of smooth curves. Beauville conjectured that the pushforward of a general vector bundle under $\alpha $ is semistable if the genus of Y is at least $1$ and stable if the genus of Y is at least $2$. We prove this conjecture if the map $\alpha $ is general in any component of the Hurwitz space of covers of an arbitrary smooth curve Y.

We prove that the cohomology rings of the moduli space $M_{d,\chi }$ of one-dimensional sheaves on the projective plane are not isomorphic for general different choices of the Euler characteristics. This stands in contrast to the $\chi $-independence of the Betti numbers of these moduli spaces. As a corollary, we deduce that $M_{d,\chi }$ are topologically different unless they are related by obvious symmetries, strengthening a previous result of Woolf distinguishing them as algebraic varieties.

We define a one-dimensional family of Bridgeland stability conditions on $\mathbb {P}^n$, named “Euler” stability condition. We conjecture that the “Euler” stability condition converges to Gieseker stability for coherent sheaves. Here, we focus on ${\mathbb P}^3$, first identifying Euler stability conditions with double-tilt stability conditions, and then we consider moduli of one-dimensional sheaves, proving some asymptotic results, boundedness for walls, and then explicitly computing walls and wall-crossings for sheaves supported on rational curves of degrees $3$ and $4$.

We extend classical results of Perego and Rapagnetta on moduli spaces of sheaves of type OG10 to moduli spaces of Bridgeland semistable objects on the Kuznetsov component of a cubic fourfold. In particular, we determine the period of this class of varieties and use it to understand when they become birational to moduli spaces of sheaves on a K3 surface.