The Riemannian geometry of the Yang-Mills moduli space (Q1098424)

For any oriented Riemannian 4-manifold M and bundle P over M one can consider the moduli space \({\mathcal M}\) of self-dual connections on P, modulo gauge equivalence. Here a connection is self-dual if its curvature F is preserved by the Hodge *-operator on 2-forms. This pioneering paper begins the study of the detailed Riemannian geometry of such moduli spaces. The metric considered is the standard L 2-metric or Weil-Peterson metric. One begins with the space \({\mathcal A}\) of all connections on P. This is an affine space modelled on \(\Omega\) 1(ad P) and we endow it with the L 2 metric. The gauge group \({\mathcal G}\) acts on \({\mathcal A}\), preserving the metric. For each connection A in \({\mathcal A}\) we have a decomposition: \[ (T{\mathcal A})_ A=Ker d_ A\quad *\oplus Im d_ A \] into ``horizontal'' and ``vertical'' subspaces (normal and tangent to the orbit of \({\mathcal G}\) through A). This defines a metric on the orbit space \({\mathcal A}/{\mathcal G}\), and hence on the submanifold \({\mathcal M}\subset {\mathcal A}/{\mathcal G}.\) The authors prove the general formula for the curvature tensor of the moduli space: \(<R(X,Y)Z,W>=<\{X,W\},G^{(0)}\{Y,W\}>-<\{Y,W\},G^{(0)}\{X,Z\}\) \(>\) \(+2<\{W,Z\},G^{(0)}\{X,Y\}>+<(Z\wedge Y)\) \(-,G^{(2)}(X\wedge W)\) \(->- <(X\wedge Z)\) \(-,G^{(2)}(Y\wedge W)\) \(->.\) Here \(G^{(0)}\), \(G^{(2)}\) are respectively the Laplace operators on the 0-forms and anti-self-dual 2-forms with values in the bundle of Lie algebras ad P; \(\{\), \(\}\) is the bilinear operator constructed from the Killing form and Riemannian inner product and ( \(\wedge )\)- is similarly constructed from the Killing form and the anti-self dual part of the wedge product. The first three terms in the formula essentially represent the curvature of the ambient space \({\mathcal A}/{\mathcal G}.\) The authors apply this formula to the ``1-instanton'' moduli space on the standard 4-sphere. As a differentiable manifold this is a copy of the open 5-ball. The metric on this manifold is computed explicitly using an approach exploiting the transitive action of the conformal group of S 4 on the moduli space. The metric is shown to be incomplete of finite volume, and conformally flat. It extends to a metric on the closed ball, with the boundary a totally geodesic submanifold.