Geometrical aspects of Schlesinger's equation

Abstract

The equation (Schlesinger's equation) for the isomonodromic deformations of an ( SL (2, C) connection with four simple poles on the projective line is shown to describe a holomorphic projective structure on a surface. The space of geodesics of this structure is, by a primitive version of twistor theory, a two-dimensional complex Poisson manifold containing complete rational curves. The Poisson structure degenerates on a divisor and it is shown that the complement of the divisor is a symplectic manifold which can be identified with the quotient of the moduli space of representations of a free group on three generators in SL (2, C ) by the action of a braid group.