Twisted Higgs bundles and coendoscopy

Abstract

This short note is devoted to the study of $G$-Higgs bundles twisted by a central gerbe. These objects arise naturally in the decomposition of the inertia stacks of $G$-Higgs bundles in terms of coendoscopic data. We establish that stabilised point-counts and cohomology are insensitive to the central twist. Along the way we show an analogue of Ng\^o's product formula for twisted Hitchin fibres.