Perturbed geodesics on the moduli space of flat connections and Yang-Mills theory

Abstract

If we consider the moduli space of flat connections of a non trivial principal SO(3)-bundle over a surface, then we can define a map from the set of perturbed closed geodesics, below a given energy level, into families of perturbed Yang-Mills connections depending on a small parameter. In this paper we show that this map is a bijection and maps perturbed geodesics into perturbed Yang-Mills connections with the same Morse index.