Betti numbers of the moduli space of Higgs bundles over a real curve

Abstract

We produce a formula for the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-Betti numbers of the moduli space $M_r^d$ of stable real Higgs bundles over a real projective curve, with coprime rank $r$ and degree $d$. Our approach relies on the motivic formula for the moduli space due to Mellit, Fedorov-Soibelman-Soibelman, and Schiffmann , and the fact that the virtual $\mathbb{Z}_2$ Poincaré polynomial is a motivic measure over $\mathbb{R}$.