Automorphisms and conjugate connections (Q676402)

Let \(P(M,G)\) be a principal bundle, \(H\subseteq G\) a closed subgroup, \(Q\subseteq P\) a reduction of \(P\) to \(H\), \(\text{Aut}(G,H)\) the group of automorphisms of \(G\) which are stationary on \(H\) and \(\text{Int}(G,H)\subseteq \text{Aut}(G,H)\) the subgroup of inner automorphisms. Further let \(\mathcal G(P)\) be the group of gauge transformations of \(P\) and \(\mathcal C(P)\) the space of connections \(T(P) \to T(G)_{e}\). The first part of the paper is a reestablishment and exposition of the results obtained by \textit{S. Kobayashi} and \textit{E. Shinozaki} [in: Geometry and topology of submanifolds, VII (World Scientific, Singapore) (1995; Zbl 0841.53001)], namely that \(\text{Aut}(G,H)\) acts on P, \(\mathcal G(P)\), \(\mathcal C(P)\) as well as on \(\mathcal C(P)/\mathcal G(P)\) and also on the space of Yang-Mills connections and their moduli space \(\mathcal M(P)\), provided \(M\) is oriented with Riemannian metric and \(T(G)_{e}\) is given an invariant inner product. In addition, the author shows that these actions induce an action of the group \(\text{Aut}(G,H)/\text{Int}(G,H)\) of outer automorphisms on \(\mathcal C(P)/\mathcal G(P)\) and on \(\mathcal M(P)\). This action restricted to \(\mathcal C^{\ast}(P)/\mathcal G(P)\) and \(\mathcal M^{\ast}(P)\) is free, where \(\mathcal C^{\ast}(P)\) denotes the space of connections whose holonomy group is \(G\), and \(\mathcal M^{\ast}(P)=\mathcal M(P)\cap (\mathcal C^{\ast}(P)/\mathcal G(P))\). These results are applied to the special case of \(G=SU(n)\) and \(H=SO(n)\). Finally, the situation when \(Q_{1}\) and \(Q_{2}\) are two non-equivalent reductions of \(P\) to \(H\) is studied. A group is constructed from \(\text{Aut}(G,H)\) and these reductions, which acts again on \(\mathcal C(P)/\mathcal G(P)\) and freely on \(\mathcal C^{\ast}(P)/\mathcal G(P)\).