Generators of the cohomology ring, after Newstead

Abstract

Newstead gave the generators of the cohomology ring of the moduli space of rank 2 semi-stable, torsion-free sheaves with fixed odd degree determinant over a smooth, projective curve. In this article, we generalize this result to the case when the underlying curve is irreducible, nodal. We show that these generators (of the cohomology ring in the nodal curve case) arise naturally as degeneration of Newstead's generators in the smooth curve case.