Symmetries of the space of linear symplectic connections (Q505961): Difference between revisions

The paper is an extensive analysis of the space of symplectic connections on a symplectic manifold \(M\), meaning torsion-free linear connections preserving the symplectic form. The aim is to find some ``interesting'' classes of symplectic connections, that the author proposes, mimicking the case of linear Riemannian connections, as zeroes or critical points of some functionals that behaves nicely with respect to the group of automorphisms of \(M\). The outcome are the so-called \textit{preferred} and \textit{critical} symplectic connections. The focus is on the study of Hamiltonian actions of particular Lie algebras of tensors over \(M\) on the space of symplectic connections; the corresponding moment maps are used to study critical connections. The paper, though rather technical in its nature, is essentially self-contained. In Section 2, all necessary background is declared and the notation is settled. Section 3 contains a study of the space of symmetric tensors over a symplectic manifold, and in particular on the Lie algebra structures on it that are used in the following sections. In Section 4, the preferred and critical symplectic connections are defined and characterized, using as central tool the \textit{Cahen-Gutt moment map}. Sections 5 and 6 are devoted to actions of the Lie algebras introduced on the space of symplectic connections. The paper is rather dense and contains a lot of material, however there is little need to refer to other sources, since all notions and almost all results used are clearly stated. This makes the paper a valuable reading both for experts and for zealous non-experts.