Differentiable spaces that are subcartesian (Q2219487)

The paper under review deals with differentiable and differential spaces, introduced in [\textit{J. W. Smith}, Tohoku Math. J. (2) 18, 115--137 (1966; Zbl 0146.19402)] and [\textit{R. Sikorski}, Colloq. Math. 18, 251--272 (1967; Zbl 0162.25101)], respectively, and with subcartesian spaces, defined in [\textit{N. Aronszajn}, ``Sub-Cartesian and sub-Riemannian spaces'', Not. Amer. Math. Soc. 14, No. 111 (1967)] as Hausdorff spaces locally diffeomorphic to arbitrary subsets of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), where an atlas of singular charts gives the differential structure. Based on the notion of a reflexive differential structure from \textit{A. Batubenge} et al. [``Diffeological, Frölicher, and differential spaces'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1712.0457}], in the reviewed paper the authors define the notion of a weakly reflexive differential structure. They consider a subcartesian space \(S\) and prove that if the differential structure \(C^\infty(S)\) is weakly reflexive, then it is a differentiable structure on \(S\). In particular, the authors take a connected smooth manifold \(M\) and a connected Lie group \(G\) which has a proper action \(\phi\) on \(M\) and show that the differential structure of the space of \(G\)-orbits \(M/G = \{G\cdot m|m \in M\}\) in \(M\) is weakly reflexive, hence \(M/G\) is a differentiable space. Thus, it follows that the orbit space \(M/G\) has an exterior algebra of differential forms that satisfies Smith's version of de Rham's theorem. The authors prove that the differential space \((M/G,C^\infty(M/G))\) is a locally closed subcartesian space and they deal with vector fields on \(M/G\) and their flows.