Perverse Leray filtration and specialization with applications to the Hitchin morphism

Abstract: We initiate and develop a framework to handle the specialization morphism as a filtered morphism for the perverse, and for the perverse Leray filtration, on the cohomology with constructible coefficients of varieties and morphisms parameterized by a curve. As an application, we use this framework to carry out a detailed study of filtered specialization for the Hitchin morphisms associated with the compactification of Dolbeault moduli spaces in [de-2018].