Parabolic Higgs bundles and cyclic monopole chains

We formulate a correspondence between SU(2) monopole chains and ``spectral data, consisting of curves in $mathbb{CP}^1timesmathbb{CP}^1$ equipped with parabolic line bundles. This is the analogue for monopole chains of Donaldsons association of monopoles with rational maps. The construction is based on the Nahm transform, which relates monopole chains to Higgs bundles on the cylinder. As an application, we classify charge $k$ monopole chains which are invariant under actions of $mathbb{Z}_{2k}$. We present images of these symmetric monopole chains that were constructed using a numerical Nahm transform.