Infinitesimal deformations of Hitchin pairs and Hitchin map

Abstract

We identify dglas that control infinitesimal deformations of the pairs (manifold, Higgs bundle) and of Hitchin pairs. As a consequence, we recover known descriptions of first order deformations and we refine known results on obstructions. Secondly we prove that the Hitchin map is induced by a natural L-infinity morphism and, by standard facts about L-infinity algebras, we obtain new conditions on obstructions to deform Hitchin pairs.