Invariant tubular neighborhoods in infinite-dimensional Riemannian geometry, with applications to Yang-Mills theory (Q719667)

Let \(X\) be a smooth Riemannian manifold on which a group \(G\) acts isometrically. If \(X\) is finite-dimensional, it follows from the classic Slice Theorem that an invariant submanifold \(Y\subset X\) admits a \(G\)-invariant tubular neighborhood. However, for an isometric action on an infinite-dimensional Riemannian manifold \(X\), the situation is more delicate. The paper under review gives a careful and detailed construction of an invariant tubular neighborhood of an invariant submanifold \(Y\) of a (possibly infinite-dimensional, strong) Riemannian manifold \(X\), under the assumption that the normal bundle of \(Y\) is a locally trivial smooth subbundle of \(TX|_Y\). It is worth remarking that the author only considers strong Riemannian manifolds, i.e., manifolds locally modelled on a Hilbert space, endowed with a Riemannian metric (a smoothly varying fiberwise Hilbert inner product on the tangent bundle) that induces the original topology on each fiber. Indeed, the given construction uses the geodesic distance associated to the Riemannian metric in a fundamental way. This construction is then applied to the Morse strata of the Yang-Mills functional over a closed surface, establishing certain isomorphisms in equivariant cohomology. The exposition is overall very clear and organized, and careful enough to pay attention to a few technical aspects of analysis on infinite-dimensional manifolds that usually go unnoticed by most geometers and topologists. In the last section, the author briefly describes some other constructions of slices/tubular neighborhoods for actions on infinite-dimensional manifolds in the literature, for instance \textit{D. G. Ebin}'s construction [Global Analysis, Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 15, 11--40 (1970; Zbl 0205.53702)] of a slice for the diffeomorphism group action by pull-back on the space of Riemannian metrics on a manifold. These existing constructions are usually tailored to a specific analytical framework, designed according to the desired applications. An abstract slice theorem for continuous affine actions on a Banach manifold was recently established by the reviewer, in collaboration with \textit{P. Piccione} and \textit{G. Siciliano} [Equivariant bifurcation in geometric variational problems, in preparation]. Namely, assume that \(G\) is a Lie group acting continuously by diffeomorphisms on a smooth Banach manifold \(X\) endowed with a \(G\)-invariant connection, and that \(x\in X\) is such that the isotropy \(G_x\) is compact and the orbit \(G(x)\) is smooth. Then there exists a slice \(S\) for the action of \(G\) at the point \(x\); in particular, \(G\cdot S\) is an invariant tubular neighborhood of the orbit of \(x\).