Infinite-Dimensional Lie Groups and Algebras in Mathematical Physics.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Mathematical Physics Volume 2010, Article ID 280362, 35 pages doi:10.1155/2010/280362 Review Article Infinite-Dimensional Lie Groups and Algebras in Mathematical Physics Rudolf Schmid Department of Mathematics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30032, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Rudolf Schmid, rudolf.schmid@ Received 8 March 2010; Accepted 16 May 2010 Academic Editor: G. A. Goldin Copyright q 2010 Rudolf Schmid. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We give a review of infinite-dimensional Lie groups and algebras and show some applications and examples in mathematical physics. This includes diffeomorphism groups and their natural subgroups like volume-preserving and symplectic transformations, as well as gauge groups and loop groups. Applications include fluid dynamics, Maxwell’s equations, and plasma physics. We discuss applications in quantum field theory and relativity gravity including BRST and supersymmetries. 1. Introduction Lie groups play an important role in physical systems both as phase spaces and as symmetry groups. Infinite-dimensional Lie groups occur in the study of dynamical systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom such as PDEs and in field theories. For such infinite-dimensional dynamical systems, diffeomorphism groups and various extensions and variations thereof, such as gauge groups, loop groups, and groups of Fourier integral operators, occur as symmetry groups and phase spaces. Symmetries are fundamental for Hamiltonian systems. They provide conservation laws Noether currents and r