The Geometry of Infinite Dimensional Groups

Infinite dimensional manifolds, Lie groups and algebras arise naturally in many areas of mathematics and physics. Having been used mainly as a tool for the study of finite dimensional objects, the emphasis has changed and they are now frequently studied for their own independent interest. On the one hand this is a collection of closely related articles on infinite dimensional Kähler manifolds and associated group actions which grew out of a DMV-Seminar on the same subject. On the other hand it covers significantly more ground than was possible during the seminar in Oberwolfach and is in a certain sense intended as a systematic approach which ranges from the foundations of the subject to recent developments. It should be accessible to doctoral students and as well researchers coming from a wide range of areas. The initial chapters are devoted to a rather selfcontained introduction to group actions on complex and symplectic manifolds and to Borel-Weil theory in finite dimensions. These are followed by a treatment of the basics of infinite dimensional Lie groups, their actions and their representations. Finally, a number of more specialized and advanced topics are discussed, e.g., Borel-Weil theory for loop groups, aspects of the Virasoro algebra, (gauge) group actions and determinant bundles, and second quantization and the geometry of the infinite dimensional Grassmann manifold.

0.1. The creators of the Lie theory viewed a Lie group as a group of symmetries of an algebraic or a geometric object; the corresponding Lie algebra, from their point of view, was the set of infinitesimal transformations. Since the group of symmetries of the object is not necessarily finite-dimensional, S. Lie considered not only the problem of classification of subgroups of GL n , but also the problem of classification of infinite-dimensional groups of transformations.