We prove a closed formula counting semistable twisted (or meromorphic) Higgs bundles of fixed rank and degree over a smooth projective curve defined over a finite field of genus g, when the degree of twisting line bundle is at least 2g − 2 (this includes the case of usual Higgs bundles). This yields a closed expression for the Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the moduli spaces of twisted Higgs bundles. We similarly deal with twisted quiver sheaves of type A (finite or affine), obtaining in particular a Harder-Narasimhan-type formula counting semistable U (p, q)-Higgs bundles over a smooth projective curve defined over a finite field.
SERGEY MOZGOVOY AND OLIVIER SCHIFFMANNThere is a natural notion of semistability for these pairs and one can construct the moduli stack Higgs ss D (r, d) of semistable D-twisted Higgs bundles over X of rank r and degree d. Despite its importance in algebraic geometry, in the theory of integrable systems and more recently in the theory of automorphic forms, the topology Higgs ss D (r, d) still remains somewhat mysterious. Observe that twisting by a line bundle of degree one yields an isomorphism Higgs ss D (r, d) ≃ Higgs ss D (r, d + r) so that only the value of d in Z/rZ matters. In [10] (see also [9, Conj.5.6]), Hausel and Rodriguez-Villegas formulated a precise conjecture for the Poincaré polynomial of Higgs ss K (r, d) when k = C and gcd(r, d) = 1. This conjecture was later refined by the first author in [15, Conj.3] (see also [3]) to a conjecture for the motive [Higgs ss D (r, d)] for any divisor D of degree l ≥ 2g − 2. In the case of D = K this conjecture was verified in low ranks [5,6] as well as for the y-genus specialization [4]. Some very interesting results for coprime r and d were also obtained in [1,2]. In [18] the second author gave an explicit formula 1 for the Poincaré polynomial of Higgs ss K (r, d) when k = C and gcd(r, d) = 1, by counting the number of points of Higgs ss K (r, d) over a finite field of high enough characteristic and using the Weil conjectures. This point count in turn relies on a geometric deformation argument to show that (in high enough characteristic) |Higgs ss K (r, d)(F q )| = q 1+(g−1)r 2 A X,r,d , where A X,r,d stands for the number of geometrically indecomposable vector bundles on X of rank r and degree d. A closed expression for A X,r,d is derived in [18].The main aim of this paper is to generalize the above results to arbitrary meromorphic Higgs bundles (i.e. to Higgs ss D (r, d) for any D of degree l ≥ 2g − 2) and to an arbitrary pair (r, d) (i.e. dropping the coprimality assumption on r and d). Our approach is in part related to that of [18], but it replaces the geometric deformation argument (only available in the symplectic case K = D and in high enough characteristic) by an argument involving the Hall algebra of the category of meromorphic Higgs bundles, which works for all D ≥ K, in all characteristics and which yields at the same time the motive of Higgs ss D (r, d) for all r and d. We also partly extend these results to the moduli sp...