Authors

Theodore James Courant

Abstract

A Dirac structure on a vector space (V) is a subspace of (V) with a skew form on it. It is shown that these structures correspond to subspaces of (V \oplus {V^{\ast }}) satisfying a maximality condition, and having the property that a certain symmetric form on (V \oplus {V^{\ast }}) vanishes when restricted to them. Dirac structures on a vector space are analyzed in terms of bases, and a generalized Cayley transformation is defined which takes a Dirac structure to an element of (O(V)). Finally a method is given for passing a Dirac structure on a vector space to a Dirac structure on any subspace. Dirac structures on vector spaces are generalized to smooth Dirac structures on a manifold (P), which are defined to be smooth subbundles of the bundle (TP \oplus {T^{\ast }}P) satisfying pointwise the properties of the linear case. If a bundle (L \subset TP \oplus {T^{\ast }}P) defines a Dirac structure on (P), then we call (L) a Dirac bundle over (P). A (3)-tensor is defined on Dirac bundles whose vanishing is the integrability condition of the Dirac structure. The basic examples of integrable Dirac structures are Poisson and presymplectic manifolds; in these cases the Dirac bundle is the graph of a bundle map, and the integrability tensors are ([B,B]) and (d\Omega) respectively. A function (f) on a Dirac manifold is called admissible if there is a vector field (X) such that the pair ((X,df)) is a section of the Dirac bundle (L); the pair ((X,df)) is called an admissible section. The set of admissible functions is shown to be a Poisson algebra. A process is given for passing Dirac structures to a submanifold (Q) of a Dirac manifold (P). The induced bracket on admissible functions on (Q) is in fact the Dirac bracket as defined by Dirac for constrained submanifolds.

Citation

  • Journal: Transactions of the American Mathematical Society
  • Year: 1990
  • Volume: 319
  • Issue: 2
  • Pages: 631–661
  • Publisher: American Mathematical Society (AMS)
  • DOI: 10.1090/s0002-9947-1990-0998124-1

BibTeX

@article{Courant_1990,
  title={{Dirac manifolds}},
  volume={319},
  ISSN={1088-6850},
  DOI={10.1090/s0002-9947-1990-0998124-1},
  number={2},
  journal={Transactions of the American Mathematical Society},
  publisher={American Mathematical Society (AMS)},
  author={Courant, Theodore James},
  year={1990},
  pages={631--661}
}

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