Moduli of Higgs bundles over the two punctured elliptic curve

Abstract

We study moduli spaces of Higgs bundles with two poles on an elliptic curve. We describe all singular fibers of the Hitchin map, including the nilpotent cone. To achieve this, we consider a modular map that lifts Higgs bundles with five poles on the Riemann sphere to Higgs bundles on the elliptic curve. This map is a two-sheeted covering and we analyze its Galois involution. We prove that the modular map is surjective and determine its ramification locus. In particular, we also obtain an explicit description of the singular locus of the moduli space.