Spaces of quasi-maps into the flag varieties and their applications

Abstract

Given a projective variety X and a smooth projective curve C one may consider the moduli space of maps C → X. This space admits certain compactification whose points are called quasi-maps. In the last decade it has been discovered that in the case when X is a (partial) flag variety of a semi-simple algebraic group G (or, more generally, of any symmetrizable Kac–Moody Lie algebra) these compactifications play an important role in such fields as geometric representation theory, geometric Langlands correspondence, geometry and topology of moduli spaces of G-bundles on algebraic surfaces, 4-dimensional super-symmetric gauge theory (and probably many others). This paper is a survey of the recent results about quasi-maps as well as their applications in different branches of representation theory and algebraic geometry.