Structure groups and holonomy in infinite dimensions (Q1771067): Difference between revisions

In this paper, the author considers principal bundles \({\pi }:P{ \to }M\), with a structure group \(G\) which is an infinite-dimensional Omori-Milnor regular Lie group, such that \(M\) and \(G\) are modelled on locally convex vector spaces, \(M\) contains a countable dense subset, and the fundamental group \(\pi _{1}( M) \) of \(M\) is countable. The author first presents a reduction theorem for the structure group, and then uses it to define the holonomy group of a connection so that the Ambrose-Singer Theorem for connections on finite-dimensional principal bundles can be generalized to the infinite-dimensional cases mentioned below. Recall that in the finite-dimensional differential geometry, the holonomy group \( H^{\text{curv}}( p) \) at a point \(p\in P\) of a connection \(\theta \) on a principal bundle \({\pi }:P{\to }M\), expressed as an \(\text{Ad }_{G}\)-invariant \(\mathfrak{g}\)-valued 1-form on \(P\), consists of \(g\in G\) implementing horizontal transport of \(p\) along loops \(\gamma \) based at \(\pi ( p) \) in \(M\), i.e., satisfying \(p\cdot g=( H\gamma ) ( 1) \in \pi ^{-1}( \pi ( p) ) \) for some piecewise smooth loop \(\gamma :[ 0,1] \to M\) with \(\gamma ( 0) =\gamma ( 1) =\pi ( p) \) where \(H\gamma : [ 0,1] \to P\) is the horizontal (i.e., \(( H\gamma ) ^{\prime }( t) \in \text{\text{ker}}( \theta _{( H\gamma ) ( t) }) \) for all \(t\)) lift of \(\gamma \) with \( ( H\gamma ) ( 0) =p\). The restricted holonomy group \( H_{0}^{\text{curv}}( p) \subseteq H^{\text{curv}}( p) \) consisting of \(g\in G\) implementing horizontal transport along contractible loops \( \gamma \) in \(M\) based at \(\pi ( p) \), can be viewed as the holonomy group of the pull-back \(\sigma ^{\ast }( \theta ) \) of \( \theta \) to the universal covering \({\sigma }:\Sigma M{\to }M \) of \(M\). The Ambrose-Singer Theorem says that the Lie algebra of the restricted holonomy group, at any \(p\in P\), of a connection \(\theta \) with curvature form \(\Omega \) is spanned by the curvature elements \(\Omega _{q}( X,Y) \) where \(q\in P\) is a point that can be joined to \(p\) by a horizontal path in \(P\) and \(X,Y\in T_{q}( M) \). Roughly speaking, for a given group embedding \({\rho }:G_{1}{\hookrightarrow }G\), a principal \(G_{1}\)-bundle \(P_{1}\) over a manifold \(M\) is called a reduction of a principal \(G\)-bundle \(P\) over \(M\) if there is a \(G_{1}\)-equivariant bundle embedding \(i:P_{1}\hookrightarrow P\) so that \( P=P_{1}\times _{G_{1}}G\), the cross product \(P_{1}\times G\) modulo the diagonal \(G_{1}\)-action \(( p_{1},g) \mapsto ( p_{1}g_{1}^{-1},g_{1}g) \) for \(g_{1}\in G_{1}\), and a connection \( \theta \) on \(P\) is called reducible to \(P_{1}\) if its pull-back (or restriction) \(i^{\ast }( \theta ) \) to \(P_{1}\) is \(\mathfrak{g}_{1}\)-valued and hence a connection on \(P_{1}\). The author shows that if \(G_{1}\) and \(G\) are Omori-Milnor regular and a connection \(\theta \) on \(P\) satisfies that \(( s,t) \in [ 0,1] ^{2}\mapsto \Omega _{Hc_{t}( s) }( X,Y) \) is smooth and \(\mathfrak{g}_{1}\)-valued for any smooth one-parameter family \(Hc_{t}\) of horizontal paths in \( P\) starting at a fixed \(p\in P\) and any smooth vector fields \(X,Y\) on \(M\), then \(P\) can be reduced to a \(G_{1}\)-bundle \(P_{1}\) and \(\theta \) reduces to \(P_{1}\) accordingly, when either \(M\) is simply connected or the horizontal transport along any loop \(\gamma \) in \(M\) is implemented by some \(g_{1}\in G_{1}\). Based on the above property of \(\theta \), the author defines the notion of closed holonomy group \(H^{\text{red}}\) of such a connection \(\theta \) in the infinite-dimensional case, and shows that if furthermore the principal bundle \(P\) has a structure group \(G\) in one of three classes of Lie groups, namely, CBH (Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff), first type, and second type, then \( H^{\text{red}}\) exists in (and depends on) that class. As a result, the Ambrose-Singer Theorem holds in such infinite-dimensional cases.