Dirac structures and Nijenhuis operators (Q2172496)

The authors introduce a notion of compatibility between (almost) Dirac structures and general \((1, 1)\)-tensor fields inspired by the theory of Poisson-Nijenhuis structures. Recall that a Dirac structure on a manifold \(M\) is a subbundle \(L\subset TM := T M \oplus T^{*} M\) that is Lagrangian (for the canonical symmetric pairing on \(TM\)) and involutive with respect to the Courant bracket. Dirac structures are originally motivated by constrained mechanics and generalize both Poisson structures and presymplectic forms. In this foundational article, the definition and basic examples of Dirac-Nijenhuis structures are presented. Discussions of their fundamental properties, such as their behavior with respect to backward and forward Dirac maps (Propositions 4.1 and 4.4), the geometry of their presymplectic leaves and Poisson quotients, and hierarchies of Dirac structures are covered in detail. Integration to Lie groupoids is treated in the final sections. The authors enhance compatibilities of Dirac structures and groupoids in terms of \((1,1)\)-tensor fields at infinitesimal and global levels. Figure 1 gives a helpful overview of how the different related areas connect, in terms of compatibilities with Dirac structures, with differential forms, differentiation, and integration. Some of their main, and most technical results include Theorem 5.5: when \(K\) is a complex structure making \(G\) into a holomorphic Lie groupoid, they obtain in a holomorphic description the infinitesimal counterparts of multiplicative differential forms. They then use it to obtain Theorem 6.3: a derivation of the infinitesimal-global correspondence between Dirac-Nijenhuis structures and presymplectic-Nijenhuis groupoids. Special cases of this correspondence include those relating holomorphic Dirac structures and holomorphic presymplectic groupoids.