Non-connected Lie groups, twisted equivariant bundles and coverings (Q2681864)

This paper is devoted to the geometry of bundles with non-connected structure group. The authors present their main results in the smooth category, but the analogous results are also valid in the topological category as well as in the holomorphic category. Let \(\Gamma\) be a finite group acting on a Lie group \(G\). Consider a class of group extensions \[ 1\longrightarrow G\longrightarrow\widehat{G}\longrightarrow\Gamma\longrightarrow 1 \] defined by this action and a \(2\)-cocycle of \(\Gamma\) with values in the centre of \(G\). The authors establish and study a correspondence between \(\widehat{G}\)-bundles on a manifold and twisted \(\Gamma\)-equivariant bundles with structure group \(G\) on a suitable Galois \(\Gamma\)-covering of the manifold. They describe this correspondence in terms of non-abelian cohomology. The results obtained apply, in particular, to the case of a compact or reductive complex Lie group \(\widehat{G}\), since such a group is always isomorphic to an extension as above, where \(G\) is the connected component of the identity and \(\Gamma\) is the group of connected components of \(\widehat{G}\). This paper is organized as follows: Section 1 is an introduction to the subject. Section 2 is devoted to non-connected Lie groups and their actions, and Section 3 to twisted equivariant structures on bundles where the authors review and further develop the theory of twisted equivariant bundles introduced in [\textit{O. Garcia-Prada} and \textit{S. Basu}, ``Finite group actions on Higgs bundle moduli spaces and twisted equivariant structures'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2011.04017}; \textit{O. Garcia-Prada} and \textit{G. Wilkin}, Doc. Math. 25, 841--868 (2020; Zbl 1451.14108)]. After establishing in Section 2 some facts on the structure of non-connected Lie groups and their actions, in Section 3, the authors define and study twisted equivariant structures on principal bundles and associated bundles. Section 4 deals with wisted equivariant bundles and coverings. In this section the authors relate principal \(\widehat{G}\)-bundles on \(X\) (a connected smooth manifold) with twisted \(\Gamma\)-equivariant principal \(G\)-bundles over a suitable covering \(p : Y \longrightarrow X\) with covering group \(\Gamma\). They establish a categorical correspondence between principal \(\widehat{G}\)-bundles on \(X\) and a twisted \(\Gamma\)-equivariant \(G\)-bundles on the covering \(p\). Section 5 deals with non-abelian sheaf cohomology and group extensions. In this section, the authors analyse the problem of identifying which \(\widehat{G}\)-bundles over \(X\) determine certain \(\Gamma\)-coverings of \(X\) from the perspective of non-abelian sheaf cohomology. Section 6 is devoted to twisted equivariant cohomology. In view of the results in Section 4, it seems clear that the first cohomology set of the Grothendieck sheaf [\textit{A. Grothendieck}, A general theory of fibre spaces with structure sheaf. 2nd edn. Kansas: University of Kansas (1958)] over \(X\) described in Section 5 must be related to the twisted equivariant bundles over a covering \(Y\) of \(X\). This relation is treated in Section 6. The authors give a cohomological description of the set of equivalence classes of twisted \(\Gamma\)-equivariant \(G\)-bundles and establish the natural long exact sequences in twisted equivariant cohomology. In particular, the long exact sequence analysis allows them to give a criterion for existence of twisted equivariant bundles. Finally, they establish the bijection between the twisted equivariant cohomology set on the Galois covering \(Y\) and the cohomology set of the Grothendieck sheaf over \(X\) mentioned above.