MODULI SPACES OF PARABOLIC HIGGS BUNDLES AND PARABOLIC K(D) PAIRS OVER SMOOTH CURVES: I

This paper concerns the moduli spaces of rank-two parabolic Higgs bundles and parabolic K(D) pairs over a smooth curve. Precisely which parabolic bundles occur in stable K(D) pairs and stable Higgs bundles is determined. Using Morse theory, the moduli space of parabolic Higgs bundles is shown to be a non-compact, connected, simply connected manifold, and a computation of its Poincaré polynomial is given.