For a riemannian structure on a semidirect product of Lie groups, the variational problems can be reduced using the group symmetry. Choosing the Levi-Civita connection of a positive definite metric tensor, instead of any of the canonical connections for the Lie group, simplifies the reduction of the variations but complicates the expression for the Lie algebra valued covariant derivatives. The origin of the discrepancy is in the semidirect product structure, which implies that the riemannian exponential...

For a Riemannian structure on a semidirect product of Lie groups, the variational problems can be reduced using the group symmetry. Choosing the Levi-Civita connection of a positive definite metric tensor, instead of any of the canonical connections for the Lie group, simplifies the reduction of the variations but complicates the expression for the Lie algebra valued covariant derivatives. The origin of the discrepancy is in the semidirect product structure, which implies that the Riemannian exponential...

This is a survey article based on the author’s Master thesis on affine representations of a gauge group. Most of the results presented here are well-known to differential geometers and physicists familiar with gauge theory. However, we hope this short systematic presentation offers a useful self-contained introduction to the subject.In the first part we present the construction of the group of motions of a Hilbert space and we explain the way in which it can be considered as a Lie group. The second...

We study some Riemannian metrics on the space of smooth regular curves in the plane, viewed as the orbit space of maps from $S^1$ to the plane modulo the group of diffeomorphisms of $S^1$, acting as reparametrizations. In particular we investigate the metric, for a constant $A>0$, $G_c^A(h,k):={\int }_{S^1}(1+A{\kappa }_c{\left(\theta \right)}^2)\langle h\left(\theta \right),k\left(\theta \right)\rangle \left|c^{\text{'}}\left(\theta \right)\right|d\theta$ where ${\kappa }_c$ is the curvature of the curve $c$ and $h$, $k$ are normal vector fields to $c$. The term $A{\kappa }^2$ is a sort of geometric Tikhonov regularization because, for $A=0$, the geodesic distance between any two distinct curves is 0, while for $A>0$ the...

Using the description of non solvable dynamics by Nakai, we give in this paper a new proof of the rigidity properties of some sub-groups of Diff(C, O). The Cinfinity case is also considered here.