Qiongling Li

For a Higgs bundle of degree 0 over a compact hyperbolic Riemann surface, the Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence says the existence of a harmonic metric is equivalent to the polystability of the Higgs bundle. In this talk, we discuss some recent progress on the existence and uniqueness of harmonic metrics on Higgs bundles over general non-compact Riemann surfaces. This is joint work with Takuro Mochizuki.