Bimodule connections for relative line modules over the irreducible quantum flag manifolds (Q2084148)

Connections are one of the most basic and important objects in geometry of any kind: from classical to noncommutative. However, in nonommutative geometry one has to carefully distinguish between left/right/bimodules and hence connections compatible with these structures, namely left connections/ right connections/ bimodule connections. To be precise, a bimodule connection on a bimodule \(E\) equipped with a first order differential calculus (FODC for short) \((\Omega^1, d)\) over a possibly noncommutative algebra \({\mathcal A}\) is given by a pair \((\nabla, \sigma)\) where \(\sigma : E \otimes_{\mathcal A} \Omega^1 \rightarrow \Omega^1 \otimes_{\mathcal A} E\) a bimodule map and \(\nabla : E \rightarrow \Omega^1 \otimes_{\mathcal A} E\) satisfying \begin{align*} \nabla(a\xi)&=a\nabla(\xi) +da \otimes_{\mathcal A} \xi,\\ \nabla(\xi a)&=\nabla(\xi)a+\sigma( \xi \otimes_{\mathcal A} da), \end{align*} \(\forall a \in {\mathcal A},~ \forall \xi \in E\). Note that a map \(\nabla\) satisfying only the first of the above equalities is called a left connection on \(E\). A natural class of interesting noncommutative spaces arise from the theory of quantum groups and quantum homogeneous spaces, in particular the so-called Drinfeld-Jimbo \(q\)-deformation \({\mathcal O} (G_q)\) of classical semisimple Lie groups \(G\), where \(q\) is a deformation parameter. The underlying algebras of such quantum homogeneous spaces have a canonical \({\mathcal O} (G_q)\)-coaction and it is natural to look for connections which are covariant with this co-action. In some recent work, one of the authors of the paper under review with other collaborators considered a class of bimodules called `relative line modules' over irreducible quantum flag manifolds of the form \({\mathcal O} (G_q/S)\) for suitable proper subsets \(S\) of the set of simple roots of the Lie algebra of \(G\) and proved the existence of a unique \({\mathcal O} (G_q)\)-covariant left connection for the well-known Heckenberger-Kolb FODC. The main result of the present paper is that this canonical left connection is also a bimodule connection for a choice of the map \(\sigma\). The main ingredients used are the results of Beggs and Majid about principal connections on quantum principal bundles. Several explicit examples are presented in details.