Differential geometry of monopole moduli spaces

Abstract

This thesis was motivated by a desire to understand the natural geometry of hyperbolic monopole moduli spaces. We take two approaches. Firstly we develop the twistor theory of singular hyperbolic monopoles and use it to study the geometry of their charge 1 moduli spaces. After this we introduce a new way to study the moduli spaces of both Euclidean and hyperbolic monopoles by applying Kodaira's deformation theory to the spectral curve. We obtain new results in both the Euclidean and hyperbolic cases. In particular we prove new cohomology vanishing theorems and find that the hyperbolic monopole moduli space appears to carry a new type of geometry whose complexification is similar to the complexification of hyperk\"ahler geometry but with different reality conditions.