Cobordism for Hamiltonian loop group actions and flat connections on the punctured two-sphere

Abstract

We develop a theory of symplectic cobordism and a Duistermaat-Heckman principle for Hamiltonian loop group actions. As an application, we construct a symplectic cobordism between moduli spaces of flat connections on the three holed sphere and disjoint unions of toric varieties. This cobordism yields formulas for the mixed Pontrjagin numbers of the moduli spaces, equivalent to Witten's formulas in the case of symplectic volumes.