In this note we point out the striking relation between the conditions arising within geometric quantization and the non-perturbative Poisson sigma model. Starting from the Poisson sigma model, we analyze necessary requirements on the path integral measure which imply a certain integrality condition for the Poisson cohomology class $[α]$.
The same condition was considered before by Crainic and Zhu but in a different context.
In the case when $[α]$ is in the image of the sharp map we reproduce the Vaisman's condition for prequantizable Poisson manifolds. For integrable Poisson manifolds we show, with a different procedure than in Crainic and Zhu, that our integrality condition implies the prequantizability of the symplectic groupoid. Using the relation between prequantization and symplectic reduction we construct the explicit prequantum line bundle for a symplectic groupoid. This picture supports the program of quantization of Poisson manifold via symplectic groupoid. At the end we discuss the case of a generic coisotropic D-brane.
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.
We evaluate the path integral of the Poisson sigma model on sphere and study the correlators of quantum observables. We argue that for the path integral to be well-defined the corresponding Poisson structure should be unimodular. The construction of the finite dimensional BV theory is presented and we argue that it is responsible for the leading semiclassical contribution. For a (twisted) generalized Kahler manifold we discuss the gauge fixed action for the Poisson sigma model. Using the localization we prove that for the holomorphic Poisson structure the semiclassical result for the correlato…
We determine the moduli space of classical solutions to the field equations of Poisson Sigma Models on arbitrary Riemann surfaces for Poisson structures with vanishing Poisson form class. This condition ensures the existence of a presymplectic form on the target Poisson manifold which agrees with the induced symplectic forms of the Poisson tensor upon pullback to the leaves. The dimension of the classical moduli space as a function of the genus of the worldsheet Sigma and the corank k of the Poisson tensor is determined as k(rank(H^1(Sigma))+1). Representatives of the classical solutions are p…
This note gives an overview on the construction of symplectic groupoids as reduced phase spaces of Poisson sigma models and its generalization in the infinite dimensional setting (before reduction).
Based on work done by Bonechi, Cattaneo, Felder and Zabzine on Poisson sigma models, we formally show that Kontsevich's star product can be obtained from the twisted convolution algebra of the geometric quantization of a Lie 2-groupoid, one which integrates the Poisson structure. We show that there is an analogue of the Poisson sigma model which is valued in Lie 1-groupoids and which can often be defined non-perturbatively; it can be obtained by symplectic reduction using the quantization of the Lie 2-groupoid. We call these groupoid-valued sigma models and we argue that, when they exist, they…
This note is an overview of the Poisson sigma model (PSM) and its applications in deformation quantization. Reduction of coisotropic and pre-Poisson submanifolds, their appearance as branes of the PSM, quantization in terms of L-infinity and A-infinity algebras, and bimodule structures are recalled. As an application, an "almost" functorial quantization of Poisson maps is presented if no anomalies occur. This leads in principle to a novel approach for the quantization of Poisson-Lie groups.
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 …
In this paper we outline the construction of semiclassical eigenfunctions of integrable models in terms of the semiclassical path integral for the Poisson sigma model with the target space being the phase space of the integrable system. The semiclassical path integral is defined as a formal power series with coefficients being Feynman diagrams. We also argue that in a similar way one can obtain irreducible semiclassical representations of Kontsevich's star product.
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…
A globalized version of a trace formula for the Poisson Sigma Model on the disk is presented by using its formal global picture in the setting of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism. This global construction includes the concept of zero modes. Moreover, for the symplectic case of the Poisson Sigma Model with cotangent target, the globalized trace reduces to a symplectic construction which was presented by Grady, Li and Li for 1-dimensional Chern-Simons theory (topological quantum mechanics). In addition, the connection between this formula and the Nest-Tsygan theorem and the Tamarkin-Tsygan theor…
We describe a deformation quantization of a modification of Poisson geometry by a closed 3-form. Under suitable conditions it gives rise to a stack of algebras. The basic object used for this aim is a kind of families of Poisson structures given by a Maurer-Cartan equation; they are easily quantized using Kontsevich's Formality theorem.
We consider the Poisson sigma model associated to a Poisson manifold. The perturbative quantization of this model yields the Kontsevich star product formula. We study here the classical model in the Hamiltonian formalism. The phase space is the space of leaves of a Hamiltonian foliation and has a natural groupoid structure. If it is a manifold then it is a symplectic groupoid for the given Poisson manifold. We study various families of examples. In particular, a global symplectic groupoid for a general class of two-dimensional Poisson domains is constructed.
Using methods of formal geometry, the Poisson sigma model on a closed surface is studied in perturbation theory. The effective action, as a function on vacua, is shown to have no quantum corrections if the surface is a torus or if the Poisson structure is regular and unimodular (e.g., symplectic). In the case of a Kahler structure or of a trivial Poisson structure, the partition function on the torus is shown to be the Euler characteristic of the target; some evidence is given for this to happen more generally. The methods of formal geometry introduced in this paper might be applicable to othe…
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.
Let $G$ be a Poisson Lie group and $\g$ its Lie bialgebra. Suppose that $\g$ is a group Lie bialgebra. This means that there is an action of a discrete group $Γ$ on $G$ deforming the Poisson structure into coboundary equivalent ones. Starting from this we construct a non-trivial stack of Hopf-Poisson algebras and prove the existence of associated deformation quantizations. This non-trivial stack is a stack of functions on the formal Poisson group, dual of the starting $Γ$ Poisson-Lie group. To quantize this non-trivial stack we use quantization of a $Γ$ Lie bialgebra which is the infinitesimal…
We give simple explicit formulas for deformation quantization of Poisson-Lie groups and of similar Poisson manifolds which can be represented as moduli spaces of flat connections on surfaces. The star products depend on a choice of Drinfeľd associator and are obtained by applying certain monoidal functors (fusion and reduction) to commutative algebras in Drinfeľd categories. From a geometric point of view this construction can be understood as a quantization of the quasi-Poisson structures on moduli spaces of flat connections.
We describe three perspectives on higher quantization, using the example of magnetic Poisson structures which embody recent discussions of nonassociativity in quantum mechanics with magnetic monopoles and string theory with non-geometric fluxes. We survey approaches based on deformation quantization of twisted Poisson structures, symplectic realization of almost symplectic structures, and geometric quantization using 2-Hilbert spaces of sections of suitable bundle gerbes. We compare and contrast these perspectives, describing their advantages and shortcomings in each case, and mention many ope…
Given a Lie algebra, there uniquely exists a Poisson algebra which is called a Lie-Poisson algebra over the Lie algebra. We will prove that given a Loday/Leibniz algebra there exists uniquely a noncommutative Poisson algebra over the Loday algebra. The noncommutative Poisson algebras are called the Loday-Poisson algebras. In the super/graded cases, the Loday-Poisson bracket is regarded as a noncommutative version of classical (linear) Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket. It will be shown that the Loday-Poisson algebras form a special subclass of Aguiar's dual-prePoisson algebras. We also study a proble…
For a possibly singular subset of a regular Poisson manifold we construct a deformation quantization of its algebra of Whitney functions. We then extend the construction of a deformation quantization to the case where the underlying set is a subset of a not necessarily regular Poisson manifold which can be written as the quotient of a regular Poisson manifold on which a compact Lie group acts freely by Poisson maps. Finally, if the quotient Poisson manifold is regular as well, we show a "quantization commutes with reduction" type result. For the proofs, we use methods stemming from both singul…
This paper is about the role of Planck's constant, $\hbar$, in the geometric quantization of Poisson manifolds using symplectic groupoids. In order to construct a strict deformation quantization of a given Poisson manifold, one can use all possible rescalings of the Poisson structure, which can be combined into a single "Heisenberg-Poisson" manifold. The new coordinate on this manifold is identified with $\hbar$. I present an explicit construction for a symplectic groupoid integrating a Heisenberg-Poisson manifold and discuss its geometric quantization. I show that in cases where $\hbar$ canno…
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…
We describe a covariant framework to construct a globalized version for the perturbative quantization of nonlinear split AKSZ Sigma Models on manifolds with and without boundary, and show that it captures the change of the quantum state as one changes the constant map around which one perturbs. This is done by using concepts of formal geometry. Moreover, we show that the globalized quantum state can be interpreted as a closed section with respect to an operator that squares to zero. This condition is a generalization of the modified Quantum Master Equation as in the BV-BFV formalism, which we …
As a detailed application of the BV-BFV formalism for the quantization of field theories on manifolds with boundary, this note describes a quantization of the relational symplectic groupoid for a constant Poisson structure. The presence of mixed boundary conditions and the globalization of results is also addressed. In particular, the paper includes an extension to space-times with boundary of some formal geometry considerations in the BV-BFV formalism, and specifically introduces into the BV-BFV framework a "differential" version of the classical and quantum master equations. The quantization…
We discuss a framework for quantizing a Poisson manifold via the quantization of its symplectic groupoid, that combines the tools of geometric quantization with the results of Renault's theory of groupoid C*-algebras. This setting allows very singular polarizations. In particular we consider the case when the modular function is "multiplicatively integrable", i.e. when the space of leaves of the polarization inherits a groupoid structure. If suitable regularity conditions are satisfied, then one can define the quantum algebra as the convolution algebra of the subgroupoid of leaves satisfying t…
We introduce the notion of relational symplectic groupoid as a way to integrate Poisson manifolds in general, following the construction through the Poisson sigma model (PSM) given by Cattaneo and Felder. We extend such construction to the infinite dimensional setting, where we are able to describe the relational symplectic groupoid in terms of immersed Lagrangian Bannach submanifolds. This corresponds to a groupoid object in the "extended symplectic category" and it can be related to the ususal version of symplectic groupoids via reduction. We prove the existence of such an object for any Poi…
We construct a Chern-Simons type of theory using the $l_\infty$ algebra encoded by a Poisson structure on arbitrary Riemann surfaces with boundaries. A deformation quantization within the Batalin-Vilkovisky framework is performed by constructing propagators with Dirichlet boundary condition on Fulton-MacPherson compactified configuration space. Our results show that the BV quantization is independent of several gauge choices in propagators, which leads to global observables that are candidates for geometric invariants of Poisson structure and topological invariants for the worldsheet structure…
We expose the basics of the Fedosov quantization procedure, placed in the general framework of symplectic ringed spaces. This framework also includes some Poisson manifolds with non regular Poisson structures, presymplectic manifolds, complex analytic symplectic manifolds, etc.
We prove the existence of a strict deformation quantization for the canonical Poisson structure on the dual of an integrable Lie algebroid. It follows that any Lie groupoid C*-algebra may be regarded as a result of a quantization procedure. The C*-algebra of the tangent groupoid of a given Lie groupoid G (with Lie algebra g) is the C*-algebra of a continuous field of C*-algebras over R with fibers A_0=C*(g)=C_0(g*) and A_h=C*(G) for nonzero h. The same is true for the corresponding reduced C*-algebras. Our results have applications to, e.g., transformation group C*-algebras, K-theory, and inde…
