Topological Quantum Field Theories for character varieties

Abstract

This PhD Thesis is devoted to the study of Hodge structures on a special type of complex algebraic varieties, the so-called character varieties. For this purpose, we propose to use a powerful algebro-geometric tool coming from theoretical physics, known as Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT). With this idea in mind, in the present Thesis we develop a formalism that allows us to construct TQFTs from two simpler pieces of data: a field theory (geometric data) and a quantisation (algebraic data). As an application, we construct a TQFT computing Hodge structures on representation varieties and we use it for computing explicity the Deligne-Hodge polynomials of parabolic ${\mathrm{SL}}_2(\mathbb{C})$-character varieties.

202 pages, 18 figures, PhD thesis (Madrid, 2018)