Representations up to homotopy and Bott's spectral sequence for Lie groupoids (Q2437528)

This work is on the study of the cohomology of classifying spaces of Lie groupoids. The authors show that Bott's spectral sequence converging to the cohomology of the classifying space of a Lie group can be extended to general Lie groupoids, provided one replaces ordinary representations by representations up to homotopy. For a Lie groupoid \(G\), there are in general few ordinary representations. For instance, in the context of ordinary representations there is no good notion of an adjoint representation. Here the authors consider representation up to homotopy instead, and show that they occur naturally when one tries to construct a model for the cohomology of classifying spaces. The notion of representation up to homotopy of a Lie groupoid corresponds to that of an \(A_{\infty}\)-functor, adapted to the smooth setting. The idea is to represent the groupoid \(G\) not in a vector bundle, but in a complex of vector bundles. The second main theme of this paper is Bott's spectral sequence for the cohomology of classifying spaces. Let me briefly discuss the construction. The cohomology of the classifying space \(BG\) of a Lie group \(G\) can be computed as the total cohomology of a double complex \(\Omega(G\bullet)\), which consists of differential forms on products of the group \(G\). This space has a vertical differential which is just the de Rham operator, and a horizontal differential which is given by the simplicial structure on the nerve of \(G\). The authors also explain the relation of this construction with the models of Cartan and Getzler for equivariant cohomology. This work is closely related to and inspired by \textit{K. A. Behrend} [Adv. Math. 198, No. 2, 583--622 (2005; Zbl 1099.14007)], \textit{R. Bott} [ibid. 11, 289--303 (1973; Zbl 0276.55011)], and \textit{E. Getzler} [ibid. 109, No. 1, 88--107 (1994; Zbl 0853.57034)].