We build a concrete and natural model for the strict 2-category of orbifolds. In particular we prove that if one localizes the 2-category of proper etale Lie groupoids at a class of 1-arrows that we call "covers", then the strict 2-category structure drops down to the localization. In our construction the spaces of 1- and 2-arrows admit natural topologies, the space of morphisms (1-arrows) between two orbifolds is naturally a groupoid and the symmetries of an orbifold form a strict 2-group.
The purpose of this thesis is to use the language of orbifold groupoids to describe the geometry and topology of orbifolds, highlighting advantages and disadvantages of this language as they arise.
This is a survey paper based on my talk at the Workshop on Orbifolds and String Theory, the goal of which was to explain the role of groupoids and their classifying spaces as a foundation for the theory of orbifolds.
For a finitely presented discrete group $Γ$, we introduce two generalizations of the orbifold Euler characteristic and $Γ$-orbifold Euler characteristic to a class of proper topological groupoids large enough to include all cocompact proper Lie groupoids. The $Γ$-Euler characteristic is defined as an integral with respect to the Euler characteristic over the orbit space of the groupoid, and the $Γ$-inertia Euler characteristic is the usual Euler characteristic of the $Γ$-inertia space associated to the groupoid. A key ingredient is the application of o-minimal structures to study orbit spaces …
For a compact manifold M and a differentiable stack \cX presented by a Lie groupoid X, we show the Hom-stack Hom(M,\cX) is presented by a Fréchet-Lie groupoid Map(M,X) and so is an infinite-dimensional differentiable stack. We further show that if \cX is an orbifold, presented by a proper étale Lie groupoid, then Map(M,X) is proper étale and so presents an infinite-dimensional orbifold.
Motivated by an attempt to better understand the notion of a symplectic stack, we introduce the notion of a symplectic hopfoid, which should be thought of as the analog of a groupoid in the so-called symplectic category. After reviewing some foundational material on canonical relations and this category, we show that symplectic hopfoids provide a characterization of symplectic double groupoids in these terms. Then, we show how such structures may be used to produce examples of symplectic orbifolds, and conjecture that all symplectic orbifolds arise via a similar construction. The symplectic st…
The first goal of this survey paper is to argue that if orbifolds are groupoids, then the collection of orbifolds and their maps has to be thought of as a 2-category. Compare this with the classical definition of Satake and Thurston of orbifolds as a 1-category of sets with extra structure and/or with the "modern" definition of orbifolds as proper etale Lie groupoids up to Morita equivalence. The second goal is to describe two complementary ways of thinking of orbifolds as a 2-category: 1. the weak 2-category of foliation Lie groupoids, bibundles and equivariant maps between bibundles and 2. t…
Motivated by symplectic geometry, we give a detailed account of differential forms and currents on orbifolds with corners, the pull-back and push-forward operations, and their fundamental properties. We work within the formalism where the category of orbifolds with corners is obtained as a localization of the category of étale proper groupoids with corners. Constructions and proofs are formulated in terms of the structure maps of the groupoids, avoiding the use of orbifold charts. The Fréchet space of differential forms on an orbifold and the dual space of currents are shown to be independent …
We approach Mackenzie's LA-groupoids from a supergeometric point of view by introducing Q-groupoids, which are groupoid objects in the category of Q-manifolds. There is a faithful functor from the category of LA-groupoids to the category of Q-groupoids. We associate to every Q-groupoid a double complex that provides a model for the Q-cohomology of the classifying space. As examples, we obtain models for equivariant Q- and orbifold Q-cohomology, and for equivariant Lie algebroid and orbifold Lie algebroid cohomology. We obtain double complexes associated to Poisson groupoids and groupoid-algebr…
In this paper we introduce the concept of Deligne cohomology of an orbifold. We prove that the third Deligne cohomology group of a smooth étale groupoid classify gerbes with connection over the groupoid. We argue that the $B$-field and the discrete torsion in type II superstring theories are special kinds of gerbes with connection, and finally, for each one of them, using Deligne cohomology we construct a flat line bundle over the inertia groupoid, namely a Ruan inner local in the case of an orbifold.
Informally, an orbifold is a smooth space whose points may have finitely many internal symmetries. Formally, however, the notion of orbifold has been presented in a number of different guises -- from Satake's V-manifolds to Moerdijk and Pronk's proper étale groupoids -- which do not on their face resemble the informal definition. The reason for this divergence between formalism and intuition is that the points of spaces cannot have internal symmetries in traditional, set-level foundations. The extra data of these symmetries must be carried around and accounted for throughout the theory. More d…
In this paper, we generalize the notion of Serre fibration to the Morita category of topological groupoids and derive the associated long exact sequence of homotopy groups. We use this results for calculation of homotopy groups of various groupoids, such as the foliation groupoid of a Riemannian foliation.
We introduce the notion of a symplectic hopfoid, which is a "groupoid-like" object in the category of symplectic manifolds where morphisms are given by canonical relations. Such groupoid-like objects arise when applying a version of the cotangent functor to the structure maps of a Lie groupoid. We show that such objects are in one-to-one correspondence with symplectic double groupoids, generalizing a result of Zakrzewski concerning symplectic double groups and Hopf algebra objects in the aforementioned category. The proof relies on the fact that one can realize the core of a symplectic double …
We introduce the notion of Lusternik-Schnirelmann category for differentiable stacks and establish its relation with the groupoid Lusternik-Schnirelmann category for Lie groupoids.
We describe various equivalent ways of associating to an orbifold, or more generally a higher étale differentiable stack, a weak homotopy type. Some of these ways extend to arbitrary higher stacks on the site of smooth manifolds, and we show that for a differentiable stack X arising from a Lie groupoid G, the weak homotopy type of X agrees with that of BG. Using this machinery, we are able to find new presentations for the weak homotopy type of certain classifying spaces. In particular, we give a new presentation for the Borel construction of an almost free action of a Lie group G on a smooth …
Given a bundle gerbe on a compact smooth manifold or, more generally, on a compact étale Lie groupoid $M$, we show that the corresponding category of gerbe modules, if it is non-trivial, is equivalent to the category of finitely generated projective modules over an Azumaya algebra on $M$. This result can be seen as an equivariant Serre-Swan theorem for twisted vector bundles.
We define and make initial study of Lie groupoids equipped with a compatible homogeneity (or graded bundle) structure, such objects we will refer to as weighted Lie groupoids. One can think of weighted Lie groupoids as graded manifolds in the category of Lie groupoids. This is a very rich geometrical theory with numerous natural examples. Note that $\mathcal{VB}$-groupoids, extensively studied in the recent literature, form just the particular case of weighted Lie groupoids of degree one. We examine the Lie theory related to weighted groupoids and weighted Lie algebroids, objects defined in a …
In this work we introduce the category of multiplicative sections of an $\la$-groupoid. We prove that this category carries natural strict Lie 2-algebra structures, which are Morita invariant. As applications, we study the algebraic structure underlying multiplicative vector fields on a Lie groupoid and in particular vector fields on differentiable stacks. We also introduce the notion of geometric vector field on the quotient stack of a Lie groupoid, showing that the space of such vector fields is a Lie algebra. We describe the Lie algebra of geometric vector fields in several cases, including…
We consider groupoids in the category of principal bundles, which we call principal bundles (PB) groupoids. Inspired by work by Th. Nikolaus and K. Waldorf, we generalise bundle gerbes over manifolds to bundle gerbes over groupoids and discuss a functorial correspondence between PB groupoids and bundle gerbes over groupoids. From a PB groupoid over a fibre product groupoid, we build a bundle gerbe over another fibre product groupoid. Conversely, from a bundle gerbe over a Lie groupoid, we build a PB groupoid. It has a trivial base and from any PB groupoid with trivial base, we build a bundle g…
We describe a bicategory $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{O}rb)$ of reduced orbifolds in the framework of classical differential geometry (i.e. without any explicit reference to notions of Lie groupoids or differentiable stacks, but only using orbifold atlases, local lifts and changes of charts). In order to construct such a bicategory, we first define a $2$-category $(\mathcal{R}ed\,\mathcal{A}tl)$ whose objects are reduced orbifold atlases (on any paracompact, second countable, Hausdorff topological space). The definition of morphisms is obtained as a slight modification of a definition by A. Pohl,…
Cieliebak, Mundet i Riera and Salamon recently formulated a definition of branched submanifold of Euclidean space in connection with their discussion of multivalued sections and the Euler class. This note proposes an intrinsic definition of a weighted branched manifold Z that is obtained from the usual definition of oriented orbifold groupoid by relaxing the properness condition and adding a weighting. We show that if Z is compact, finite dimensional and oriented, then it carries a fundamental class [Z]. Adapting the construction of Liu and Tian, we also show that the fundamental class [X] of …
The construction of a C*-algebra of a differential groupoid is presented. It is shown that it defines a covariant functor from the category of differential groupoids in a sense of S. Zakrzewski to the category of C*-algebras.
Quasifolds are spaces that are locally modelled by quotients of $\mathbb{R}^n$ by countable affine group actions. These spaces first appeared in Elisa Prato's generalization of the Delzant construction, and special cases include leaf spaces of irrational linear flows on the torus, and orbifolds. We consider the category of diffeological quasifolds, which embeds in the category of diffeological spaces, and the bicategory of quasifold groupoids, which embeds in the bicategory of Lie groupoids, bibundles, and bibundle morphisms. We prove that, restricting to those morphisms that are locally inver…
The classical Serre-Swan's theorem defines a bijective correspondence between vector bundles and finitely generated projective modules over the algebra of continuous functions on some compact Hausdorff topological space. We extend these results to obtain a correspondence between the category of representations of an etale Lie groupoid and the category of modules over its convolution algebra that are of finite type and of constant rank. Both of these constructions are functorially defined on the Morita bicategory of etale Lie groupoids and the given correspondence represents a natural equivalen…
Any etale Lie groupoid G is completely determined by its associated convolution algebra C_c(G) equipped with the natural Hopf algebroid structure. We extend this result to the generalized morphisms between etale Lie groupoids: we show that any principal H-bundle P over G is uniquely determined by the associated C_c(G)-C_c(H)-bimodule C_c(P) equipped with the natural coalgebra structure. Furthermore, we prove that the functor C_c gives an equivalence between the Morita category of etale Lie groupoids and the Morita category of locally grouplike Hopf algebroids.
We extend the notion of the cardinality of a discrete groupoid (equal to the Euler characteristic of the corresponding discrete orbifold) to the setting of Lie groupoids. Since this quantity is an invariant under equivalence of groupoids, we call it the volume of the associated stack rather than of the groupoid itself. Since there is no natural measure in the smooth case like the counting measure in the discrete case, we need extra data to define the volume. This data has the form of an invariant section of a natural line bundle over the groupoid. Sections of a square root of this line bundle …
Using tools from the theory of Lie groupoids, we study the category of logarithmic flat connections on principal $G$-bundles, where $G$ is a complex reductive structure group. Flat connections on the affine line with a logarithmic singularity at the origin are equivalent to representations of a groupoid associated to the exponentiated action of $\mathbb{C}$. We show that such representations admit a canonical Jordan-Chevalley decomposition and use this to give a functorial classification. Flat connections on a complex manifold with logarithmic singularities along a hypersurface are equivalent …
VB-groupoids are vector bundles in the category of Lie groupoids. They encompass several classical objects, including Lie group representations and 2-vector spaces. Moreover, they provide geometric pictures for 2-term representations up to homotopy of Lie groupoids. We attach to every VB-groupoid a cochain complex controlling its deformations and discuss its fundamental features, such as Morita invariance and a van Est theorem. Several examples and applications are given.
