Small rational curves on the moduli space of stable bundles

Abstract: For a smooth projective curve C with genus g >= 2 and a degree 1 line bundle L on C, let M := SU_{C}(r;L) be the moduli space of stable vector bundles of rank r and with the fixed determinant L. In this paper, we study the small rational curves on M and estimate the codimension of the locus of the small rational curves. In particular, we determine all small rational curves when r = 3.