We study constant Q-curvature metrics conformal to the the round metric on the sphere with finitely many point singularities. We show that the moduli space of solutions with finitely many punctures in fixed positions, equipped with the Gromov–Hausdorff topology, has the local structure of a real algebraic variety with formal dimension equal to the number of the punctures. If a nondegeneracy hypothesis holds, we show that a neighbourhood in the moduli spaces is actually a smooth, real-analytic manifold of the expected dimension. We also construct a geometrically natural set of parameters, construct a symplectic structure on this parameter space and show that in the smooth case a small neighbourhood of the moduli space embeds as a Lagrangian submanifold in the parameter space. We remark that our construction of the symplectic structure is quite different from the one in the scalar curvature setting, due to the fact that the associated partial differential equation is fourth-order rather than second-order.

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.

A real variety whose real locus achieves the Smith–Thom equality is called maximal. This paper introduces new constructions of maximal real varieties, by using moduli spaces of geometric objects. We establish the maximality of the following real varieties:

• – moduli spaces of stable vector bundles of coprime rank and degree over a maximal real curve (recovering Brugallé–Schaffhauser’s theorem with a short new proof), which extends to moduli spaces of parabolic vector bundles;

• – moduli spaces of stable Higgs bundles of coprime rank and degree over a maximal real curve, providing maximal hyper-Kähler manifolds in every even dimension;

• – if a real variety has maximal Hilbert square, then the variety and its Hilbert cube are maximal, which happens for all maximal real cubic 3-folds, but never for maximal real cubic 4-folds;

• – punctual Hilbert schemes on a maximal real surface with vanishing first $\mathbb {F}_2$-Betti number and connected real locus, such as $\mathbb {R}$-rational maximal real surfaces and some generalized Dolgachev surfaces;

• – moduli spaces of stable sheaves on an $\mathbb {R}$-rational maximal Poisson surface (e.g. the real projective plane).

We define and study graphs associated to hexagon decompositions of surfaces by curves and arcs. One of the variants is shown to be quasi-isometric to the pants graph, whereas the other variant is quasi-isometric to (a Cayley graph of) the mapping class group.

We construct the first example of a stable hyperholomorphic vector bundle of rank five on every hyper-Kähler manifold of $\mathrm {K3}^{[2]}$-type whose deformation space is smooth of dimension 10. Its moduli space is birational to a hyper-Kähler manifold of type OG10. This provides evidence for the expectation that moduli spaces of sheaves on a hyper-Kähler could lead to new examples of hyper-Kähler manifolds.

In this work, we study the Humbert-Edge curves of type 5, defined as a complete intersection of four diagonal quadrics in ${\mathbb{P}}^5$. We characterize them using Kummer surfaces, and using the geometry of these surfaces, we construct some vanishing thetanulls on such curves. In addition, we describe an argument to give an isomorphism between the moduli space of Humbert-Edge curves of type 5 and the moduli space of hyperelliptic curves of genus 2, and we show how this argument can be generalized to state an isomorphism between the moduli space of hyperelliptic curves of genus $g=\frac{n-1}{2}$ and the moduli space of Humbert-Edge curves of type $n\geq 5$ where $n$ is an odd number.

We introduce a linearised form of the square root of the Todd class inside the Verbitsky component of a hyper-Kähler manifold using the extended Mukai lattice. This enables us to define a Mukai vector for certain objects in the derived category taking values inside the extended Mukai lattice which is functorial for derived equivalences. As applications, we obtain a structure theorem for derived equivalences between hyper-Kähler manifolds as well as an integral lattice associated to the derived category of hyper-Kähler manifolds deformation equivalent to the Hilbert scheme of a K3 surface mimicking the surface case.

We study the behaviour of representation varieties of quivers with relations under the operation of node splitting. We show how splitting a node gives a correspondence between certain closed subvarieties of representation varieties for different algebras, which preserves properties like normality or having rational singularities. Furthermore, we describe how the defining equations of such closed subvarieties change under the correspondence.

By working in the ‘relative setting’ (splitting one node at a time), we demonstrate that there are many nonhereditary algebras whose irreducible components of representation varieties are all normal with rational singularities. We also obtain explicit generators of the prime defining ideals of these irreducible components. This class contains all radical square zero algebras, but also many others, as illustrated by examples throughout the paper. We also show that this is true when irreducible components are replaced by orbit closures, for a more restrictive class of algebras. Lastly, we provide applications to decompositions of moduli spaces of semistable representations of certain algebras.

In [12], Kim and the first author proved a result comparing the virtual fundamental classes of the moduli spaces of $\varepsilon $-stable quasimaps and $\varepsilon $-stable $LG$-quasimaps by studying localized Chern characters for $2$-periodic complexes.

In this paper, we study a K-theoretic analogue of the localized Chern character map and show that for a Koszul $2$-periodic complex it coincides with the cosection-localized Gysin map of Kiem and Li [11]. As an application, we compare the virtual structure sheaves of the moduli space of $\varepsilon $-stable quasimaps and $\varepsilon $-stable $LG$-quasimaps.

We study the moduli space of rank 2 instanton sheaves on ℙ3 in terms of representations of a quiver consisting of three vertices and four arrows between two pairs of vertices. Aiming at an alternative compactification for the moduli space of instanton sheaves, we show that for each rank 2 instanton sheaf, there is a stability parameter θ for which the corresponding quiver representation is θ-stable (in the sense of King), and that the space of stability parameters has a non-trivial wall-and-chamber decomposition. Looking more closely at instantons of low charge, we prove that there are stability parameters with respect to which every representation corresponding to a rank 2 instanton sheaf of charge 2 is stable and provide a complete description of the wall-and-chamber decomposition for representation corresponding to a rank 2 instanton sheaf of charge 1.

Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ be a post-critically finite branched covering of a two-sphere. By work of Koch, the Thurston pullback map induced by $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ on Teichmüller space descends to a multivalued self-map—a Hurwitz correspondence ${\mathcal{H}}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}}$—of the moduli space ${\mathcal{M}}_{0,\mathbf{P}}$. We study the dynamics of Hurwitz correspondences via numerical invariants called dynamical degrees. We show that the sequence of dynamical degrees of ${\mathcal{H}}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}}$ is always non-increasing and that the behavior of this sequence is constrained by the behavior of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}$ at and near points of its post-critical set.

Using properties of skew-Hamiltonian matrices and classic connectedness results, we prove that the moduli space $M_{\text{ort}}^{0}\left( r,\,n \right)$ of stable rank $r$ orthogonal vector bundles on ${{\mathbb{P}}^{2}}$ , with Chern classes $\left( {{c}_{1}},\,{{c}_{2}} \right)\,=\,\left( 0,\,n \right)$ and trivial splitting on the general line, is smooth irreducible of dimension $\left( r-2 \right)n\,-\,\left( _{2}^{r} \right)$ for $r\,=\,n$ and $n\,\ge \,4$ , and $r\,=\,n-1$ and $n\,\ge \,8$ . We speculate that the result holds in greater generality.

We describe double Hurwitz numbers as intersection numbers on the moduli space of curves ${{\overline{M}}_{g,n}}$ Using a result on the polynomiality of intersection numbers of psi classes with the Double Ramification Cycle, our formula explains the polynomiality in chambers of double Hurwitz numbers and the wall-crossing phenomenon in terms of a variation of correction terms to the $\varphi$ classes. We interpret this as suggestive evidence for polynomiality of the Double Ramification Cycle (which is only known in genera 0 and 1).