We study a modification of Poisson geometry by a closed 3-form. Just as for ordinary Poisson structures, these "twisted" Poisson structures are conveniently described as Dirac structures in suitable Courant algebroids. The additive group of 2-forms acts on twisted Poisson structures and permits them to be seen as glued from ordinary Poisson structures defined on local patches. We conclude with remarks on deformation quantization and twisted symplectic groupoids.
We consider a general N=(2,2) non-linear sigma model with a torsion. We show that the consistency of N=(2,2) supersymmetry implies that the target manifold is necessary equipped with two (in general, different) Poisson structures. Finally we argue that the Poisson geometry of the target space is a characteristic feature of the sigma models with extended supersymmetry.
Constrained Hamiltonian systems fall into the realm of presymplectic geometry. We show, however, that also Poisson geometry is of use in this context. For the case that the constraints form a closed algebra, there are two natural Poisson manifolds associated to the system, forming a symplectic dual pair with respect to the original, unconstrained phase space. We provide sufficient conditions so that the reduced phase space of the constrained system may be identified with a symplectic leaf in one of those. In the second class case the original constrained system may be reformulated equivalently…
We inquire into the relation between the curl operators, the Poisson coboundary operators and contravariant derivatives on Poisson manifolds to study the theory of differential operators in Poisson geometry. Given an oriented Poisson manifold, we describe locally those two differential operators in terms of Poisson connection whose torsion is vanishing. Moreover, we introduce the notion of the modular operator for an oriented Poisson manifold. For a symplectic manifold, we describe explicitly the modular operator in terms of the curvature 2-section of Poisson connection, analogously to the Wei…
In earlier work we have shown that the moduli space $N$ of flat connections for the (trivial) $\roman{SU(2)}$-bundle on a closed surface of genus $\ell \geq 2$ inherits a structure of stratified symplectic space with two connected strata $N_Z$ and $N_{(T)}$ and $2^{2\ell}$ isolated points. In this paper we show that, close to each point of $N_{(T)}$, the space $N$ and its Poisson algebra look like a product of $\bold C^{\ell}$ endowed with the standard symplectic Poisson structure with the reduced space and Poisson algebra of the system of $(\ell-1)$ particles in the plane with total angular m…
We introduce left central and right central functions and left and right leaves in quasi-Poisson geometry, generalizing central (or Casimir) functions and symplectic leaves from Poisson geometry. They lead to a new type of (quasi-)Poisson reduction, which is both simpler and more general than known quasi-Hamiltonian reductions. We study these notions in detail for moduli spaces of flat connections on surfaces, where the quasi-Poisson structure is given by an intersection pairing on homology.
We extend the Falceto-Zambon version of Marsden-Ratiu Poisson reduction to Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis structures with background on manifolds. We define gauge transformations of Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis structures with background, study some of their properties and show that they are compatible with reduction procedure. We use gauge transformations to construct Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis structures with background.
We consider compatibility conditions between Poisson and Riemannian structures on smooth manifolds by means of a contravariant partially complex structure, or $f$-structure, introducing the notion of (almost) Kähler--Poisson manifolds. In addition, we study some of their properties under structure preserving maps and symmetries.
We study the natural Poisson structure on the Lie group SU(1,1) and related questions. In particular, we give an explicit description of the Ginzburg-Weinstein isomorphism for the sets of admissible elements. We also establish an analogue of Thompson's conjecture for this group.
These are expanded notes from lectures given at the États de la Recherche workshop on "Derived algebraic geometry and interactions". These notes serve as an introduction to the emerging theory of Poisson structures on derived stacks.
We extend the notion of Poisson-Lie groups and Lie bialgebras from Poisson to g-quasi-Poisson geometry and provide a quantization to braided Hopf algebras in the corresponding Drinfeld category. The basic examples of these g-quasi-Poisson Lie groups are nilpotent radicals of parabolic subgroups. We also provide examples of moment maps in this new context coming from moduli spaces of flat connections on surfaces.
We previously extended the Marsden-Ratiu reduction theorem in Poisson geometry by means of graded geometry (see Part I of Arxiv:1009.0948) . In this note we provide the background material about graded geometry necessary for the proof. Further, we provide an alternative algebraic proof.
We prove that the information geometry's Frobenius manifold is a symplectic manifold having Poisson structures. By proving this statement, a bridge is created between the theories developed by Vinberg, Souriau and Koszul and the Frobenius manifold approach. Until now these approaches seemed disconnected.
We review recent results and ongoing investigations of the symplectic and Poisson geometry of derived moduli spaces, and describe applications to deformation quantization of such spaces.
We discuss contravariant connections on Poisson manifolds. For vector bundles, the corresponding operational notion of a contravariant derivative had been introduced by Izu Vaisman. We show that these connections play an important role in the study of global properties of Poisson manifolds and we use them to define Poisson holonomy and new invariants of Poisson manifolds.
These notes discuss various aspect of the ``representation theory'' of Poisson manifolds, with focus on Morita equivalence and Picard groups. We give a brief introduction to Poisson geometry (including Dirac and twisted Poisson structures) and algebraic Morita theory before presenting the geometric Morita theory of Poisson manifolds. We also point out the connections with the theory of symplectic groupoids and hamiltonian actions.
Every action on a Poisson manifold by Poisson diffeomorphisms lifts to a Hamiltonian action on its symplectic groupoid which has a canonically defined momentum map. We study various properties of this momentum map as well as its use in reduction.
Motivated by questions from quantum group and field theories, we review structures on manifolds that are weaker versions of Poisson structures, and variants of the notion of Lie algebroid. We give a simple definition of the Courant algebroids and introduce the notion of a deriving operator for the Courant bracket of the double of a proto-bialgebroid. We then describe and relate the various quasi-Poisson structures, which have appeared in the literature since 1991, and the twisted Poisson structures studied by Severa and Weinstein.
A group, defined as set with associative multiplication and inverse, is a natural structure describing the symmetry of a space. The concept of group generalizes to group objects internal to other categories than sets. But there are yet more general objects that can still be thought of as groups in many ways, such as quantum groups. We explain some of the generalizations of groups which arise in Poisson geometry and quantization: the germ of a topological group, Poisson Lie groups, rigid monoidal structures on symplectic realizations, groupoids, 2-groups, stacky Lie groups, and hopfish algebras…
We extend the coupling to the topological backgrounds, recently worked out for the 2-dimensional BF-model, to the most general Poisson sigma models. The coupling involves the choice of a Casimir function on the target manifold and modifies the BRST transformations. This in turn induces a change in the BRST cohomology of the resulting theory. The observables of the coupled theory are analyzed and their geometrical interpretation is given. We finally couple the theory to 2-dimensional topological gravity: this is the first step to study a topological string theory in propagation on a Poisson man…
General boundary conditions ("branes") for the Poisson sigma model are studied. They turn out to be labeled by coisotropic submanifolds of the given Poisson manifold. The role played by these boundary conditions both at the classical and at the perturbative quantum level is discussed. It turns out to be related at the classical level to the category of Poisson manifolds with dual pairs as morphisms and at the perturbative quantum level to the category of associative algebras (deforming algebras of functions on Poisson manifolds) with bimodules as morphisms. Possibly singular Poisson manifolds …
Hans Duistermaat was scheduled to lecture in the 2010 School on Poisson Geometry at IMPA, but passed away suddenly. This is a record of a talk I gave at the 2010 Conference on Poisson Geometry (the week after the School) to share some of my memories of him and to give a brief assessment of his impact on the subject.
These are lecture notes for the course "Poisson geometry and deformation quantization" given by the author during the fall semester 2020 at the University of Zurich. The first chapter is an introduction to differential geometry, where we cover manifolds, tensor fields, integration on manifolds, Stokes' theorem, de Rham's theorem and Frobenius' theorem. The second chapter covers the most important notions of symplectic geometry such as Lagrangian submanifolds, Weinstein's tubular neighborhood theorem, Hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps and symplectic reduction. The third chapter gives an introd…
Our paper develops a theory of Poisson slices and a uniform approach to their partial compactifications. The theory in question is loosely comparable to that of symplectic cross-sections in real symplectic geometry.
The Kaehler quotient of a complex reductive Lie group relative to the conjugation action carries a complex algebraic stratified Kaehler structure which reflects the geometry of the group. For the group SL(n,C), we interpret the resulting singular Poisson-Kaehler geometry of the quotient in terms of complex discriminant varieties and variants thereof.
We study the integrability of Poisson and Dirac structures that arise from quotient constructions. From our results we deduce several classical results as well as new applications. We also give explicit constructions of Lie groupoids integrating two interesting families of geometric structures: (i) a special class of Poisson homogeneous spaces of symplectic groupoids integrating Poisson groups and (ii) Dirac homogeneous spaces.
We recall the question of geometric integrators in the context of Poisson geometry, and explain their construction. These Poisson integrators are tested in some mechanical examples. Their properties are illustrated numerically and they are compared to traditional methods.
We describe first integrals of geostrophic equations, which are similar to the enstrophy invariants of the Euler equation for an ideal incompressible fluid. We explain the geometry behind this similarity, give several equivalent definitions of the Poisson structure on the space of smooth densities on a symplectic manifold, and show how it can be obtained via the Hamiltonian reduction from a symplectic structure on the diffeomorphism group.
We prove that the standard Poisson structure on the Grassmannian Gr(k, n) is invariant under the action of the Coxeter element c =(1 2 ... n). In particular, its symplectic foliation is invariant under c. As a corollary, we obtain a second, Poisson geometric proof of the result of Knutson, Lam, and Speyer that the Coxeter element c interchanges the Lusztig strata of Gr(k, n). We also relate the main result to known anti-invariance properties of the standard Poisson structures on cominuscule flag varieties.
We study a Poisson structure $π$ on the Grothendieck resolution $X$ of a complex semi-simple group $G$ and prove that the desingularization map $μ:(X,π) \to (G,π_0)$ is Poisson, where $π_0$ is a Poisson structure such that intersections of conjugacy classes and opposite Bruhat cells $BwB_-$ are Poisson subvarieties. We compute the symplectic leaves of $X$ and show that $(X, π)$ resolves singularities of $(G, π_0)$.
The moduli space of $G$-bundles on an elliptic curve with additional flag structure admits a Poisson structure. The bivector can be defined using double loop group, loop group and sheaf cohomology constructions. We investigate the links between these methods and for the case $\SL_2$ perform explicit computations, describing the bracket and its leaves in detail.
In the framework of the connection theory, a contravariant analog of the Sternberg coupling procedure is developed for studying a natural class of Poisson structures on fiber bundles, called coupling tensors. We show that every Poisson structure near a closed symplectic leaf can be realized as a coupling tensor. Our main result is a geometric criterion for the neighborhood equivalence between Poisson structures over the same leaf. This criterion gives a Poisson analog of the relative Darboux theorem due to Weinstein. Within the category of the algebroids, coupling tensors are introduced on the…
This paper is devoted to coregular submanifolds in Poisson geometry. We show that their local Poisson saturation is an embedded Poisson submanifold, and we give a normal form for this Poisson submanifold around the coregular submanifold. This result recovers the normal form around Poisson transversals, and it yields Poisson versions of some normal form/rigidity results around constant rank submanifolds in symplectic geometry. As an application, we prove a uniqueness result concerning coisotropic embeddings of Dirac manifolds in Poisson manifolds. We also show how our results generalize to the …
We introduce scattering-symplectic manifolds, manifolds with a type of minimally degenerate Poisson structure that is not too restrictive so as to have a large class of examples, yet restrictive enough for standard Poisson invariants to be computable. This paper will demonstrate the potential of the scattering symplectic setting. In particular, we construct scattering-symplectic spheres and scattering symplectic gluings between strong convex symplectic fillings of a contact manifold. By giving an explicit computation of the Poisson cohomology of a scattering symplectic manifold, we also introd…
We consider surfaces embedded in a Riemannian manifold of arbitrary dimension and prove that many aspects of their differential geometry can be expressed in terms of a Poisson algebraic structure on the space of smooth functions of the surface. In particular, we find algebraic formulas for Weingarten's equations, the complex structure and the Gaussian curvature.
Recent works have revealed that the recipe for field-antifield quantization of Lagrangian gauge theories can be considerably relaxed when it comes to choosing a path integral measure ρif a zero-order term ν_ρ is added to the Δoperator. The effects of this odd scalar term ν_ρ become relevant at two-loop order. We prove that ν_ρ is essentially the odd scalar curvature of an arbitrary torsion-free connection that is compatible with both the anti-Poisson structure E and the density ρ. This extends a previous result for non-degenerate antisymplectic manifolds to degenerate anti-Poisson manifolds th…
We present a computational toolkit for (local) Poisson-Nijenhuis calculus on manifolds. Our python module $\textsf{PoissonGeometry}$ implements our algorithms, and accompanies this paper. We include two examples of how our methods can be used, one for gauge transformations of Poisson bivectors in dimension 3, and a second one that determines parametric Poisson bivector fields in dimension 4.
The Banach Poisson geometry of multi-diagonal Hamiltonian systems having infinitely many integrals in involution is studied. It is shown that these systems can be considered as generalizing the semi-infinite Toda lattice which is an example of a bidiagonal system, a case to which special attention is given. The generic coadjoint orbits of the Banach Lie group of bidiagonal bounded operators are studied. It is shown that the infinite dimensional generalization of the Flaschka map is a momentum map. Action-angle variables for the Toda system are constructed.
We first extend the notion of connection in the context of Courant algebroids to obtain a new characterization of generalized Kaehler geometry. We then establish a new notion of isomorphism between holomorphic Poisson manifolds, which is non-holomorphic in nature. Finally we show an equivalence between certain configurations of branes on Poisson varieties and generalized Kaehler structures, and use this to construct explicitly new families of generalized Kaehler structures on compact holomorphic Poisson manifolds equipped with positive Poisson line bundles (e.g. Fano manifolds). We end with so…
This thesis studies normal forms for Poisson structures around symplectic leaves using several techniques: geometric, formal and analytic ones. One of the main results (Theorem 2) is a normal form theorem in Poisson geometry, which is the Poisson-geometric version of the Local Reeb Stability (from foliation theory) and of the Slice Theorem (from equivariant geometry). The result generalizes Conn's theorem from fixed points to arbitrary symplectic leaves. We present two proofs of this result: a geometric one relying heavily on the theory of Lie algebroids and Lie groupoids (similar to the new p…
Let $M^{2n}$ be a Poisson manifold with Poisson bivector field $Π$. We say that $M$ is b-Poisson if the map $Π^n:M\toΛ^{2n}(TM)$ intersects the zero section transversally on a codimension one submanifold $Z\subset M$. This paper will be a systematic investigation of such Poisson manifolds. In particular, we will study in detail the structure of $(M,Π)$ in the neighbourhood of $Z$ and using symplectic techniques define topological invariants which determine the structure up to isomorphism. We also investigate a variant of de Rham theory for these manifolds and its connection with Poisson cohomo…
This work is based on the talk delivered at Poisson 2008. We review the recent advances in Generalized Kahler geometry while stressing the use of Poisson and symplectic geometry. The derivation of the generalized Kahler potential is sketched and the relevant global issues are discussed.
We prove a normal form theorem for principal Hamiltonian actions on Poisson manifolds around the zero locus of the moment map. The local model is the generalization to Poisson geometry of the classical minimal coupling construction from symplectic geometry of Sternberg and Weinstein. Further, we show that the result implies that the quotient Poisson manifold is linearizable, and we show how to extend the normal form to other values of the moment map.
We study Dirac structures associated with Manin pairs (\d,\g) and give a Dirac geometric approach to Hamiltonian spaces with D/G-valued moment maps, originally introduced by Alekseev and Kosmann-Schwarzbach in terms of quasi-Poisson structures. We explain how these two distinct frameworks are related to each other, proving that they lead to isomorphic categories of Hamiltonian spaces. We stress the connection between the viewpoint of Dirac geometry and equivariant differential forms. The paper discusses various examples, including q-Hamiltonian spaces and Poisson-Lie group actions, explaining …
This work contains a brief and elementary exposition of the foundations of Poisson and symplectic geometries, with an emphasis on applications for Hamiltonian systems with second-class constraints. In particular, we clarify the geometric meaning of the Dirac bracket on a symplectic manifold and provide a proof of the Jacobi identity on a Poisson manifold. A number of applications of the Dirac bracket are described: applications for the proof of the compatibility of a system consisting of differential and algebraic equations, as well as applications for the problem of reduction of a Hamiltonian…
We study isomorphism classes of symplectic dual pairs P <- S -> P-, where P is an integrable Poisson manifold, S is symplectic, and the two maps are complete, surjective Poisson submersions with connected and simply-connected fibres. For fixed P, these Morita self-equivalences of P form a group Pic(P) under a natural ``tensor product'' operation. We discuss this group in several examples and study variants of this construction for rings (the origin of the notion of Picard group), Lie groupoids, and symplectic groupoids.
We introduce a Poisson variety compatible with a cluster algebra structure and a compatible toric action on this variety. We study Poisson and topological properties of the union of generic orbits of this toric action. In particular, we compute the number of connected components of the union of generic toric orbits for cluster algebras over real numbers. As a corollary we compute the number of connected components of refined open Bruhat cells in Grassmanians G(k,n) over real numbers.
Brown and Gordon asked whether the Poisson Dixmier-Moeglin equivalence holds for any complex affine Poisson algebra; that is, whether the sets of Poisson rational ideals, Poisson primitive ideals, and Poisson locally closed ideals coincide. In this article a complete answer is given to this question using techniques from differential-algebraic geometry and model theory. In particular, it is shown that while the sets of Poisson rational and Poisson primitive ideals do coincide, in every Krull dimension at least four there are complex affine Poisson algebras with Poisson rational ideals that are…
In this paper we study the symplectic and Poisson geometry of moduli spaces of flat connections over quilted surfaces. These are surfaces where the structure group varies from region to region in the surface, and where a reduction (or relation) of structure occurs along the boundaries of the regions. Our main theoretical tool is a new form moment-map reduction in the context of Dirac geometry. This reduction framework allows us to use very general relations of structure groups, and to investigate both the symplectic and Poisson geometry of the resulting moduli spaces from a unified perspective…
We present twelve numerical methods for evaluation of objects and concepts from Poisson geometry. We describe how each method works with examples, and explain how it is executed in code. These include methods that evaluate Hamiltonian and modular vector fields, compute the image under the coboundary and trace operators, the Lie bracket of differential 1-forms, gauge transformations, and normal forms of Lie-Poisson structures on $\mathbf{R}^{3}$. The complexity of each of our methods is calculated, and we include experimental verifications on examples in dimensions two and three.
