The motivation for this paper stems \cite{CR} from the need to construct explicit isomorphisms of (possibly nontrivial) principal $G$-bundles on the space of loops or, more generally, of paths in some manifold $M$, over which I consider a fixed principal bundle $P$; the aforementioned bundles are then pull-backs of $P$ w.r.t. evaluation maps at different points.
The explicit construction of these isomorphisms between pulled-back bundles relies on the notion of {\em parallel transport}. I introduce and discuss extensively at this point the notion of {\em generalized gauge transformation between (a priori) distinct principal $G$-bundles over the same base $M$}; one can see immediately that the parallel transport can be viewed as a generalized gauge transformation for two special kind of bundles on the space of loops or paths; at this point, it is possible to generalize the previous arguments for more general pulled-back bundles.
Finally, I discuss how flatness of the reference connection, w.r.t. which I consider holonomy and parallel transport, is related to horizontality of the associated generalized gauge transformation.
We give a new construction of the holonomy groupoid of a regular foliation in terms of a partial connection on a diffeological principal bundle of germs of transverse parametrisations. We extend these ideas to construct a novel holonomy groupoid for any foliated bundle, which we prove sits at the top of a hierarchy of diffeological jet holonomy groupoids associated to the foliated bundle.
We define a notion of connection in a fibre bundle that is compatible with a singular foliation of the base. Fibre bundles equipped with such connections are in plentiful supply, arising naturally for any Lie groupoid-equivariant bundle, and simultaneously generalising regularly foliated bundles in the sense of Kamber-Tondeur and singular foliations. We define hierarchies of diffeological holonomy groupoids associated to such bundles, which arise from the parallel transport of jet/germinal conservation laws. We show that the groupoids associated in this manner to trivial singularly foliated bu…
We outline the construction of the holonomy groupoid of a locally Lie groupoid and the monodromy groupoid of a Lie groupoid. These specialise to the well known holonomy and monodromy groupoids of a foliation, when the groupoid is just an equivalence relation.
Our main aim is to associate a holonomy Lie groupoid to the connective structure of an abelian gerbe. The construction has analogies with a procedure for the holonomy Lie groupoid of a foliation, in using a locally Lie groupoid and a globalisation procedure. We show that path connections and 2-holonomy on line bundles may be formulated using the notion of a connection pair on a double category, due to Brown-Spencer, but now formulated in terms of double groupoids using the thin fundamental groupoids introduced by Caetano-Mackaay-Picken. To obtain a locally Lie groupoid to which globalisation a…
We look at Poisson geometry taking the viewpoint of singular foliations, understood as suitable submodules generated by Hamiltonian vector fields rather than partitions into (symplectic) leaves. The class of Poisson structures which behave best from this point of view, are those whose submodule generated by Hamiltonian vector fields arises from a smooth holonomy groupoid. We call them almost regular Poisson structures and determine them completely. They include regular Poisson and log symplectic manifolds, as well as several other Poisson structures whose symplectic foliation presents singular…
In order to understand the linearization problem around a leaf of a singular foliation, we extend the familiar holonomy map from the case of regular foliations to the case of singular foliations. To this aim we introduce the notion of holonomy transformation. Unlike the regular case, holonomy transformations can not be attached to classes of paths in the foliation, but rather to elements of the holonomy groupoid of the singular foliation. This assignment is injective. Holonomy transformations allow us to link the linearization problem with the compactness of the isotropy group of the holonomy …
Previous work (Pradines, 1966, Aof and Brown, 1992) has given a setting for a holonomy Lie groupoid of a locally Lie groupoid. Here we develop analogous 2-dimensional notions starting from a locally Lie crossed module of groupoids. This involves replacing the Ehresmann notion of a local smooth coadmissible section of a groupoid by a local smooth coadmissible homotopy (or free derivation) for the crossed module case. The development also has to use corresponding notions for certain types of double groupoids. This leads to a holonomy Lie groupoid rather than double groupoid, but one which involv…
The notion of local equivalence relation on a topological space is generalised to that of local subgroupoid. The main result is the construction of the holonomy and monodromy groupoids of certain Lie local subgroupoids, and the formulation of a monodromy principle on the extendibility of local Lie morphisms.
Every singular foliation has an associated topological groupoid, called holonomy groupoid (see arXiv:math/0612370). In this note we exhibit some functorial properties of this assignment: if a foliated manifold $(M,\mathcal{F}_M)$ is the quotient of a foliated manifold $(P,\mathcal{F}_P)$ along a surjective submersion with connected fibers, then the same is true for the corresponding holonomy groupoids. For quotients by a Lie group action, an analog statement holds under suitable assumptions, yielding a Lie 2-group action on the holonomy groupoid.
We construct the holonomy groupoid of any singular foliation. In the regular case this groupoid coincides with the usual holonomy groupoid of Winkelnkemper (1983); the same holds in the singular cases of Bigonnet and Pradines (1985) and Debord (2001), which from our point of view can be thought of as being "almost regular". In the general case, the holonomy groupoid can be quite an ill behaved geometric object. On the other hand it often has a nice longitudinal smooth structure. Nonetheless, we use this groupoid to generalize to the singular case Connes' construction of the C*-algebra of the f…
We prove a generalisation of Bott's vanishing theorem for the full transverse frame holonomy groupoid of any transversely orientable foliated manifold. As a consequence we obtain a characteristic map encoding both primary and secondary characteristic classes. Previous descriptions of this characteristic map are formulated for the Morita equivalent étale groupoid obtained via a choice of complete transversal. By working with the full holonomy groupoid we obtain novel geometric representatives of characteristic classes. In particular we give a geometric, non-étale analogue of the codimension 1 G…
We give a new construction of the holonomy and fundamental groupoids of a singular foliation. In contrast with the existing construction of Androulidakis and Skandalis, our method proceeds by taking a quotient of an infinite dimensional space of paths. This strategy is a direct extension of the classical construction for regular foliations and mirrors the integration of Lie algebroids via paths (per Crainic and Fernandes). In this way, we obtain a characterization of the holonomy and fundamental groupoids of a singular foliation that more clearly reflects the homotopic character of these invar…
This doctoral thesis has two objectives. The first objective is to introduce a notion of equivalence for singular foliations that preserves their transverse geometry and is compatible with the notions of Morita equivalence of the holonomy groupoids and the transverse equivalence for regular foliations that appeared in the 1980's. The second one is to describe the structures behind quotients of singular foliations and to connect these results with their associated holonomy groupoids. It also wants to give an introduction to the notion of singular foliations as given by Androulidakis and Skandal…
We define the thin fundamental Gray 3-groupoid $S_3(M)$ of a smooth manifold $M$ and define (by using differential geometric data) 3-dimensional holonomies, to be smooth strict Gray 3-groupoid maps $S_3(M) \to C(H)$, where $H$ is a 2-crossed module of Lie groups and $C(H)$ is the Gray 3-groupoid naturally constructed from $H$. As an application, we define Wilson 3-sphere observables.
This paper is concerned with the holonomy of a class of spaces which includes Landsberg spaces of Finsler geometry. The methods used are those of Lie groupoids and algebroids as developed by Mackenzie. We prove a version of the Ambrose-Singer Theorem for such spaces. The paper ends with a discussion of how the results may be extended to Finsler spaces and homogeneous nonlinear connections in general.
We describe the possible holonomy groups of simply connected irreducible non-locally symmetric pseudo-Riemannian spin manifolds which admit parallel spinors.
We introduce singular subalgebroids of an integrable Lie algebroid, extending the notion of Lie subalgebroid by dropping the constant rank requirement. We lay the bases of a Lie theory for singular subalgebroids: we construct the associated holonomy groupoids, adapting the procedure of Androulidakis-Skandalis for singular foliations, in a way that keeps track of the choice of Lie groupoid integrating the ambient Lie algebroid. The holonomy groupoids are topological groupoids, and are suitable for noncommutative geometry as they allow for the construction of the associated convolution algebras.…
The object of this article is to compute the holonomy group of the normal connection of complex parallel submanifolds of the complex projective space. We also give a new proof of the classification of complex parallel submanifolds by using a normal holonomy approach. Indeed, we explain how these submanifolds can be regarded as the unique complex orbits of the (projectivized) isotropy representation of an irreducible Hermitian symmetric space. Moreover, we show how these important submanifolds are related to other areas of mathematics and theoretical physics. Finally, we state a conjecture abou…
The holonomy of the ambient metrics of Nurowski's conformal structures associated to generic real-analytic 2-plane fields on 5-manifolds is investigated. It is shown that the holonomy is always contained in the split real form G_2 of the exceptional Lie group, and is equal to G_2 for an open dense set of 2-plane fields given by explicit conditions. In particular, this gives an infinite-dimensional family of metrics of holonomy equal to split G_2. These results generalize work of Leistner-Nurowski. The inclusion of the holonomy in G_2 is established by proving an ambient extension theorem for p…
We study the full holonomy group of Lorentzian manifolds with a parallel null line bundle. We prove several results that are based on the classification of the restricted holonomy groups of such manifolds and provide a construction method for manifolds with disconnected holonomy which starts from a Riemannian manifold and a properly discontinuous group of isometries. Most of our examples are quotients of pp-waves with disconnected holonomy and without parallel vector field. Furthermore, we classify the full holonomy groups of solvable Lorentzian symmetric spaces and of Lorentzian manifolds wit…
We investigate parallel submanifolds of a Riemannian symmetric space $N$. The special case of a symmetric submanifold has been investigated by many authors before and is well understood. We observe that there is an intrinsic property of the second fundamental form which distinguishes full symmetric submanifolds from arbitrary full parallel submanifolds of $N$, usually called "1-fullness of $M$". Furthermore, for every parallel submanifold $M$ of $N$ we consider the pullback bundle $TN|M$ with its induced connection, which admits a distinguished parallel subbundle $osc M$, usually called the "s…
We compute the full holonomy group of compact Lorentzian manifolds with parallel Weyl tensor, which are neither conformally flat nor locally symmetric, for the case where the fundamental group is contained in a distinguished subgroup G of the isometry group of the universal cover. To prove this, we show that every such compact Lorentzian manifold has to be geodesically complete. Moreover we characterize the identity component of the isometry group for this universal cover and show that G is up to a discrete factor contained in the latter. Concretely, we prove that the identity component of the…
In this paper we establish a one-to-one correspondence between $S^1$-gerbes with connections, on the one hand, and their holonomies, for simply connected manifolds, or their parallel transports, in the general case, on the other hand. This result is a higher-order analogue of the familiar equivalence between bundles with connections and their holonomies for connected manifolds. The holonomy of a gerbe with group $S^1$ on a simply connected manifold $M$ is a group morphism from the thin second homotopy group to $S^1$, satisfying a smoothness condition, where a homotopy between maps from $[0,1]^…
In this paper we complete the classification of spin manifolds admitting parallel spinors, in terms of the Riemannian holonomy groups. More precisely, we show that on a given n-dimensional Riemannian manifold, spin structures with parallel spinors are in one to one correspondence with lifts to Spin_n of the Riemannian holonomy group, with fixed points on the spin representation space. In particular, we obtain the first examples of compact manifolds with two different spin structures carrying parallel spinors.
On a closed connected oriented manifold $M$ we study the space $\mathcal{M}_\|(M)$ of all Riemannian metrics which admit a non-zero parallel spinor on the universal covering. Such metrics are Ricci-flat, and all known Ricci-flat metrics are of this form. We show the following: The space $\mathcal{M}_\|(M)$ is a smooth submanifold of the space of all metrics, and its premoduli space is a smooth finite-dimensional manifold. The holonomy group is locally constant on $\mathcal{M}_\|(M)$. If $M$ is spin, then the dimension of the space of parallel spinors is a locally constant function on $\mathcal…
We study the geometry and holonomy of semi-Riemannian, time-like metric cones that are indecomposable, i.e., which do not admit a local decomposition into a semi-Riemannian product. This includes irreducible cones, for which the holonomy can be classified, as well as non irreducible cones. The latter admit a parallel distribution of null $k$-planes, and we study the cases $k=1$ and $k=2$ in detail. In these cases, i.e., when the cone admits a distribution of parallel null tangent lines or planes, we give structure theorems about the base manifold. Moreover, in the case $k=1$ and when the base …
(This is a revised version of the paper) - In the present paper we study the geometry of doubly extended Lie groups with their natural biinvariant metric. We describe the curvature, the holonomy and the space of parallel spinors. This is completely done for all simply connected groups with biinvariantmetric of Lorentzian signature $(1,n-1)$, of signature $(2,n-2)$ and of signature $(p,q)$, where $p+q\leq 6$. Furthermore, some special series with higher signature are discussed.
We completely explore the system of ODE's which is equivalent to the existence of a parallel $Spin(7)$-structure on the cone over a 7-dimensional 3-Sasakian manifold. The one-dimensional family of solutions of this system is constructed. The solutions of this family correspond to metrics with holonomy SU(4) which generalize the Calabi metrics.
We introduce horizontal holonomy groups, which are groups defined using parallel transport only along curves tangent to a given subbundle $D$ of the tangent bundle. We provide explicit means of computing these holonomy groups by deriving analogues of Ambrose-Singer's and Ozeki's theorems. We then give necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the horizontal holonomy groups for existence of solutions of two problems on foliated manifolds: determining when a foliation can be either (a) totally geodesic or (b) endowed with a principal bundle structure. The subbundle $D$ plays the role of an…
We show that the holonomy invariance of a function on the tangent bundle of a manifold, together with very mild regularity conditions on the function, is equivalent to the existence of local parallelisms compatible with the function in a natural way. Thus, in particular, we obtain a characterization of generalized Berwald manifolds. We also construct a simple example of a generalized Berwald manifold which is not Berwald.
Holonomy groups and holonomy algebras for connections on locally free sheaves over supermanifolds are introduced. A one-to-one correspondence between parallel sections and holonomy-invariant vectors, and a one-to-one correspondence between parallel locally direct subsheaves and holonomy-invariant vector supersubspaces are obtained. As the special case, the holonomy of linear connections on supermanifolds is studied. Examples of parallel geometric structures on supermanifolds and the corresponding holonomies are given. For Riemannian supermanifolds an analog of the Wu theorem is proved. Berger …
It was proven by Hitchin that any solution of his evolution equations for a half-flat SU(3)-structure on a compact six-manifold M defines an extension of M to a seven-manifold with holonomy in G_2. We give a new proof, which does not require the compactness of M. More generally, we prove that the evolution of any half-flat G-structure on a six-manifold M defines an extension of M to a Ricci-flat seven-manifold N, for any real form G of SL(3,C). If G is noncompact, then the holonomy group of N is a subgroup of the noncompact form G_2^* of G_2^C. Similar results are obtained for the extension of…
We describe, by their holonomy groups, all complete simply connected irreducible non-locally symmetric pseudo-Riemannian SpinC manifolds which admit parallel spinors. So we generalize the Riemannian SpinC case and the pseudo-Riemannian Spin one.
The theory of principal $G$-bundles over a Lie groupoid is an important one, unifying the various types of principal $G$-bundles, including those over manifolds, those over orbifolds, as well as equivariant principal $G$-bundles. In this paper, we study the differential geometry of these objects, including connections and holonomy maps. We also introduce a Chern-Weil map for these principal bundles and prove that the characteristic classes obtained coincide with the universal characteristic classes. As an application, we recover the equivariant Chern-Weil map of Bott-Tu. We also obtain an expl…
We prove that the Cauchy problem for parallel null vector fields on smooth Lorentzian manifolds is well posed. The proof is based on the derivation and analysis of suitable hyperbolic evolution equations given in terms of the Ricci tensor and other geometric objects. Moreover, we classify Riemannian manifolds satisfying the constraint conditions for this Cauchy problem. It is then possible to characterise certain holonomy reductions of globally hyperbolic manifolds with parallel null vector in terms of flow equations for Riemannian special holonomy metrics. For exceptional holonomy groups thes…
In this paper we investigate the relationship between the existence of parallel semi-Riemannian metrics of a connection and the reducibility of the associated holonomy group. The question as to whether the holonomy group necessarily reduces in the presence of a specified number of independent parallel semi-Riemannian metrics is completely determined by the the signature of the metrics and the dimension, d, of the manifold, when d not equal to four. In particular, the existence of two independent, parallel semi-Riemannian metrics, one of which having signature (p,q) with p not equal to q, impli…
The classification of Riemannian manifolds by the holonomy group of their Levi-Civita connection picks out many interesting classes of structures, several of which are solutions to the Einstein equations. The classification has two parts. The first consists of isolated examples: the Riemannian symmetric spaces. The second consists of geometries that can occur in continuous families: these include the Calabi-Yau structures and Joyce manifolds of string theory. One may ask how one can weaken the definitions and still obtain similar classifications. We present two closely related suggestions. The…
In this note it is shown that the Maslov Index for pairs of Lagrangian Paths as introduced by Cappell, Lee and Miller appears by parallel transporting elements of (a certain complex line-subbundle of) the symplectic spinorbundle over Euclidean space, when pulled back to an (embedded) Lagrangian submanifold $L$, along closed or non-closed paths therein. In especially, the CLM-Index mod 4 determines the holonomy group of this line bundle w.r.t. the Levi-Civita-connection on $L$, hence its vanishing mod 4 is equivalent to the existence of a trivializing parallel section. Moreover, it is shown tha…
We develop a holonomy reduction procedure for general Cartan geometries. We show that, given a reduction of holonomy, the underlying manifold naturally decomposes into a disjoint union of initial submanifolds. Each such submanifold corresponds to an orbit of the holonomy group on the modelling homogeneous space and carries a canonical induced Cartan geometry. The result can therefore be understood as a `curved orbit decomposition'. The theory is then applied to the study of several invariant overdetermined differential equations in projective, conformal and CR-geometry. This makes use of an eq…
This work is a spin-off of an on-going programme which aims at revisiting the original studies of Lie and Cartan on pseudogroups and geometric structures from a modern perspective. We encode geometric structures induced by transitive Lie pseudogroups into principal $G$-bundles equipped with a transversally parallelisable foliation generated by a subalgebra of $\mathfrak{g}$, called Cartan bundles. Our approach is complementary to arXiv:1911.13147 and is based on Morita equivalence of Lie groupoids. After identifying the main examples and properties, we develop a notion of flatness with respect…
A pp-wave is a Lorentzian manifold with a parallel light-like vector field satisfying a certain curvature condition. We introduce generalisations of pp-waves, on one hand by allowing the vector field to be recurrent and on the other hand by weakening the curvature condition. These generalisations are related to the screen holonomy of the Lorentzian manifold. While pp-waves have a trivial screen holonomy there are no restrictions on the screen holonomy of the manifolds with the weaker curvature condition.
We find a remarkable family of $\mathrm{G}_2$ structures defined on certain principal $\mathrm{SO}(3)$-bundles $P_\pm\longrightarrow M$ associated with any given oriented Riemannian 4-manifold $M$. Such structures are always cocalibrated. The study starts with a recast of the Singer-Thorpe equations of 4-dimensional geometry. These are applied to the Bryant-Salamon cons\-truction of complete $\mathrm{G}_2$-holonomy metrics on the vector bundle of self- or anti-self-dual 2-forms on $M$. We then discover new examples of that special holonomy on disk bundles over ${\cal H}^4$ and ${\cal H}^2_{\ma…
Due to its length and several inaccuracies, this article is no longer suggested for reading. Moreover, in the meantime certain results presented herein could be improved by the author in a non-trivial fashion. Instead, the reader is referred to the following two articles: The extrinsic holonomy Lie algebra of a parallel submanifold (arXiv:0904.2611), Extrinsic homogeneity of parallel submanifolds (arXiv:0904.2636).
Killing forms on Riemannian manifolds are differential forms whose covariant derivative is totally skew-symmetric. We show that on a compact manifold with holonomy G2 or Spin7 any Killing form has to be parallel. The main tool is a universal Weitzenboeck formula. We show how such a formula can be obtained for any given holonomy group and any representation defining a vector bundle.
An SU(3)- or SU(1,2)-structure on a 6-dimensional manifold N^6 can be defined as a pair of a 2-form omega and a 3-form rho. We prove that any analytic SU(3)- or SU(1,2)-structure on N^6 with d omega^2 =0 can be extended to a parallel Spin(7)- or Spin_0(3,4)-structure Phi that is defined on the trivial disc bundle N^6\times B_epsilon(0) for a sufficiently small epsilon>0. Furthermore, we show by an example that Phi is not uniquely determined by (omega,rho) and discuss if our result can be generalized to non-trivial bundles.
On a Lorentzian manifold the existence of a parallel null vector field implies certain constraint conditions on the induced Riemannian geometry of a space-like hypersurface. We will derive these constraint conditions and, conversely, show that every real analytic Riemannian manifold satisfying the constraint conditions can be extended to a Lorentzian manifold with a parallel null vector field. Similarly, every parallel null spinor on a Lorentzian manifold induces an imaginary generalised Killing spinor on a space-like hypersurface. Then, based on the fact that a parallel spinor field induces a…
We study super parallel transport around super loops in a quotient stack, and show that this geometry constructs a global version of the equivariant Chern character.
Starting from a 6-dimensional nilpotent Lie group N endowed with an invariant SU(3) structure, we construct a homogeneous conformally parallel G_2-metric on an associated solvmanifold. We classify all half-flat SU(3) structures that endow the rank-one solvable extension of N with a conformally parallel G_2 structure. By suitably deforming the SU(3) structures obtained, we are able to describe the corresponding non-homogeneous Ricci-flat metrics with holonomy contained in G_2. In the process we also find a new metric with exceptional holonomy.
