The automorphism group of a Banach principal bundle with {1}-structure

A {1}-structure on a Banach manifold M (with model space E) is an E-valued 1-form on M that induces on each tangent space an isomorphism onto E. Given a Banach principal bundle P with connected base space and a {1}-structure on P, we show that its automorphism group can be turned into a Banach–Lie group acting smoothly on P provided the Lie algebra of infinitesimal automorphisms consists of complete vector fields. As a consequence we show that the automorphism group of a connected geodesically complete affine Banach manifold M can be turned into a Banach–Lie group acting smoothly on M.     

Any virtually polycyclic group admits a NIL-affine crystallographic action

In this paper, we prove that any virtually polycyclic group admits a properly discontinuous and cocompact action on a simply connected, connected nilpotent Lie group N. This action is affine in the sense that the group acts as a subgroup of the affine group Aff(N)=N?Aut(N) of connection preserving automorphisms of N. As a consequence, we also obtain that any virtually polycyclic group admits a polynomial crystallographic action of degree bounded above by its Hirsch length.     

THE BANACH-LIE GROUP OF LIE TRIPLE AUTOMORPHISMS OF AN H^＊-ALGEBRA^＊

We study the Banach-Lie group Ltaut(A) of Lie triple automorphisms of a complex associative H*-algebra A. Some consequences about its Lie algebra, the algebra of Lie triple derivations of A, Ltder(A), are obtained. For a topologically simple A, in the infinite-dimensional case we have Ltaut(A)0 = Aut(A) implying Ltder(A) = Der(A). In the finite-dimensional case Ltaut(A)0 is a direct product of Aut(A) and a certain subgroup of Lie derivations δ from A to its center, annihilating commutators.     

On Generators of the Tame Automorphism Group of Free Metabelian Lie Algebras

We prove that the tame automorphism group TAut(M _n ) of a free metabelian Lie algebra M _n in n variables over a field k is generated by a single nonlinear automorphism modulo all linear automorphisms if n ≥ 4 except the case when n = 4 and char(k) ≠ 3. If char(k) = 3, then TAut(M ₄) is generated by two automorphisms modulo all linear automorphisms. We also prove that the tame automorphism group TAut(M ₃) cannot be generated by any finite number of automorphisms modulo all linear automorphisms.     

Ergodic Actions of Semisimple Lie Groups on Compact Principal Bundles

Let G = SL(n, ?) (or, more generally, let G be a connected, noncompact, simple Lie group). For any compact Lie group K, it is easy to find a compact manifold M, such that there is a volume-preserving, connection-preserving, ergodic action of G on some smooth, principal K-bundle P over M. Can M can be chosen independent of K? We show that if M = H/Λ is a homogeneous space, and the action of G on M is by translations, then P must also be a homogeneous space H′Λ′. Consequently, there is a strong restriction on the groups K that can arise over this particular M.     

Fano contact manifolds and nilpotent orbits

A contact structure on a complex manifold M is a corank 1 subbundle F of T_M such that the bilinear form on F with values in the quotient line bundle L = T_M/F deduced from the Lie bracket of vector fields is everywhere non-degenerate. In this paper we consider the case where M is a Fano manifold; this implies that L is ample.?If is a simple Lie algebra, the unique closed orbit in (for the adjoint action) is a Fano contact manifold; it is conjectured that every Fano contact manifold is obtained in this way. A positive answer would imply an analogous result for compact quaternion-Kahler manifolds with positive scalar curvature, a longstanding question in Riemannian geometry.?In this paper we solve the conjecture under the additional assumptions that the group of contact automorphisms of M is reductive, and that the image of the rational map M P(H ₀(M, L)*) sociated to L has maximum dimension. The proof relies on the properties of the nilpotent orbits in a semi-simple Lie algebra, in particular on the work of R. Brylinski and B. Kostant. Received: July 28, 1997     

The envelope of holomorphy of a model third-degree surface and the rigidity phenomenon

The structures of the graded Lie algebra aut Q infinitesimal automorphisms of a cubic (a model surface in ?^N) and the corresponding group Aut Q of its holomorphic automorphisms are studied. It is proved that for any nondegenerate cubic, the positively graded components of the algebra aut Q are trivial and, as a consequence, Aut Q has no subgroups consisting of nonlinear automorphisms of the cubic that preserve the origin (the so-called rigidity phenomenon). In the course of the proof, the envelope of holomorphy for a nondegenerate cubic is constructed and shown to be a cylinder with respect to the cubic variable whose base is a Siegel domain of the second kind.     

Contractible Lie groups over local fields

Let G be a Lie group over a local field of characteristic p > 0 which admits a contractive automorphism α : G → G (i.e., α ⁿ (x) → 1 as n → ∞, for each x ∈ G). We show that G is a torsion group of finite exponent and nilpotent. We also obtain results concerning the interplay between contractive automorphisms of Lie groups over local fields, contractive automorphisms of their Lie algebras, and positive gradations thereon. Some of the results extend to Lie groups over arbitrary complete ultrametric fields. Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), grants GL 357/2-1 and GL 357/6-1.     

Lie algebras of infinitesimal norm isometries

Given a norm on a finite dimensional vector space V, we may consider the group of all linear automorphisms which preserve it. The Lie algebra of this group is a Lie subalgebra of the endomorphism algebra of V having two properties: (1) it is the Lie algebra of a compact subgroup, and (2) it is “saturated” in a sence made precise below. We show that any Lie subalgebra satisfying these conditions is the Lie algebra of the group of linear automorphisms preserving some norm. There is an appendix on elementary Lie group theory.     

Reduction of Jacobi manifolds via Dirac structures theory

We first recall some basic definitions and facts about Jacobi manifolds, generalized Lie bialgebroids, generalized Courant algebroids and Dirac structures. We establish an one-one correspondence between reducible Dirac structures of the generalized Lie bialgebroid of a Jacobi manifold (M,Λ,E) for which 1 is an admissible function and Jacobi quotient manifolds of M. We study Jacobi reductions from the point of view of Dirac structures theory and we present some examples and applications.     

Central extensions of gauge groups revisited

We present an explicit construction for the central extension of the group Map(X, G) where X is a compact manifold and G is a Lie group. If X is a complex curve we obtain a simple construction of the extension by the Picard variety Pic(X). The construction is easily adapted to the extension of Aut(E), the gauge group of automorphisms of a nontrivial vector bundle E.     

Lie group structures on groups of smooth and holomorphic maps on non-compact manifolds

We study Lie group structures on groups of the form C ^∞(M, K), where M is a non-compact smooth manifold and K is a, possibly infinite-dimensional, Lie group. First we prove that there is at most one Lie group structure with Lie algebra for which the evaluation map is smooth. We then prove the existence of such a structure if the universal cover of K is diffeomorphic to a locally convex space and if the image of the left logarithmic derivative in is a smooth submanifold, the latter being the case in particular if M is one-dimensional. We also obtain analogs of these results for the group of holomorphic maps on a complex manifold with values in a complex Lie group K. We further show that there exists a natural Lie group structure on if K is Banach and M is a non-compact complex curve with finitely generated fundamental group.      

Gauge-Invariant Characterization of Yang–Mills–Higgs Equations

Let C → M be the bundle of connections of a principal G-bundle P → M over a pseudo-Riemannian manifold (M,g) of signature (n⁺, n⁻) and let E → M be the associated bundle with P under a linear representation of G on a finite-dimensional vector space. For an arbitrary Lie group G, the O(n⁺, n⁻) × G-invariant quadratic Lagrangians on J¹(C × _M E) are characterized. In particular, for a simple Lie group the Yang–Mills and Yang–Mills–Higgs Lagrangians are characterized, up to an scalar factor, to be the only O(n⁺, n⁻) × G-invariant quadratic Lagrangians. These results are also analyzed on several examples of interest in gauge theory. Submitted: May 19, 2005; Accepted: April 25, 2006     

Projective homogeneity

We consider aC simply connected manifoldM endowed with a projective structureP and under an additional hypothesis on the projective curvature tensor, we find necessary and sufficient conditions in order thatM turns out to be a reductive homogeneous spaceG/H whereG is a Lie group acting onM as a group of automorphisms ofP.     

Algebraic properties of compatible Poisson brackets

We discuss algebraic properties of a pencil generated by two compatible Poisson tensors A(x) and B(x). From the algebraic viewpoint this amounts to studying the properties of a pair of skew-symmetric bilinear forms A and B defined on a finite-dimensional vector space. We describe the Lie group G _P of linear automorphisms of the pencil P = {A + λB}. In particular, we obtain an explicit formula for the dimension of G _P and discuss some other algebraic properties such as solvability and Levi-Malcev decomposition.     

The topology of a semisimple Lie group is essentially unique

We study locally compact group topologies on simple and semisimple Lie groups. We show that the Lie group topology on such a group S is very rigid: every “abstract” isomorphism between S and a locally compact and σ-compact group Γ is automatically a homeomorphism, provided that S is absolutely simple. If S is complex, then noncontinuous field automorphisms of the complex numbers have to be considered, but that is all. We obtain similar results for semisimple groups.     

Cohomogeneity one Riemannian manifolds of non-positive curvature

We study a G-manifold M which admits a G-invariant Riemannian metric g of non-positive curvature. We describe all such Riemannian G-manifolds (M,g) of non-positive curvature with a semisimple Lie group G which acts on M regularly and classify cohomogeneity one G-manifolds M of a semisimple Lie group G which admit an invariant metric of non-positive curvature. Some results on non-existence of invariant metric of negative curvature on cohomogeneity one G-manifolds of a semisimple Lie group G are given.     

Central extensions of current groups

 In this paper we study central extensions of the identity component G of the Lie group C ^∞ (M,K) of smooth maps from a compact manifold M into a Lie group K which might be infinite-dimensional. We restrict our attention to Lie algebra cocycles of the form ω(ξ,η)=[κ(ξ,dη)], where κ:𝔨×𝔨→Y is a symmetric invariant bilinear map on the Lie algebra 𝔨 of K and the values of ω lie in Ω¹(M,Y)/dC ^∞ (M,Y). For such cocycles we show that a corresponding central Lie group extension exists if and only if this is the case for M=𝕊¹. If K is finite-dimensional semisimple, this implies the existence of a universal central Lie group extension of G. The groups Diff(M) and C ^∞ (M,K) act naturally on G by automorphisms. We also show that these smooth actions can be lifted to smooth actions on the central extension if it also is a central extension of the universal covering group G˜ of G. Received: 11 April 2002 / Revised version: 28 August 2002 / Published online: 28 March 2003     

The Automorphism Group of a Free-by-Cyclic Group in Rank 2

Let φ be an automorphism of a free group F_n of rank n, and let M_φ = F_n ?_φ ? be the corresponding mapping torus of φ. We study the group Out(M_φ) under certain technical conditions on φ. Moreover, in the case of rank 2, we classify the cases when this group is finite or virtually cyclic, depending on the conjugacy class of the image of φ in GL₂(?). As an application, we solve the isomorphism problem for the family of F₂-by-? groups, in terms of the two defining automorphisms.