Simpson's classic nonabelian Hodge correspondence establishes an equivalence of categories between local systems on a projective manifold, and certain Higgs sheaves on that manifold. This talk surveys recent generalisations of Simpson's correspondence to the context of projective varieties with klt singularities. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, these spaces exhibit two correspondences: one pertaining to local systems on the whole space, and one to local systems on its smooth locus. As one application, we resolve the quasi-étale uniformisation problem for minimal varieties of general type, and to obtain a complete numerical characterisation of singular quotients of the unit ball by discrete, co-compact groups of automorphisms that act freely in codimension one.[-]

Hitchin's equations are a system of gauge theoretic equations on a Riemann surface that are of interest in many areas including representation theory, Teichmu ̈ller theory, and the geometric Langlands correspondence. In this talk, I'll describe what solutions of SL(n, C)-Hitchin's equations “near the ends” of the moduli space look like, and the resulting compactification of the Hitchin moduli space. Wild Hitchin moduli spaces are an important ingredient in this construction. This construction generalizes Mazzeo-Swoboda-Weiss-Witt's construction of SL(2, C)-solutions of Hitchin's equations where the Higgs field is “simple.”[-]

In this talk I will explain recent joint work with Rafe Mazzeo, Hartmut Weiss and Frederik Witt on the asymptotics of the natural $L^2$-metric $G_{L^2}$ on the moduli space $\mathcal{M}$ of rank-2 Higgs bundles over a Riemann surface $\Sigma$ as given by the set of solutions to the so-called self-duality equations
$\begin{cases}
&0 = \bar{\partial}_A \Phi \\
& 0 = F_A + [ \Phi \wedge \Phi^*]
\end{cases}$
for a unitary connection $A$ and a Higgs field $\Phi$ on $\Sigma$. I will show that on the regular part of the Hitchin fibration ($A$, $\Phi$) $\rightarrow$ det $\Phi$ this metric is well-approximated by the semiflat metric $G_{sf}$ coming from the completely integrable system on $\mathcal{M}$. This also reveals the asymptotically conic structure of $G_{L^2}$, with (generic) fibres of the above fibration being asymptotically flat tori. This result confirms some aspects of a more general conjectural picture made by Gaiotto, Moore and Neitzke. Its proof is based on a detailed understanding of the ends structure of $\mathcal{M}$. The analytic methods used there in addition yield a complete asymptotic expansion of the difference $G_{L^2} − G_{sf}$ between the two metrics.[-]