Central Extensions of Gauge Groups Revisited

Abstract

We present an explicit construction for the central extension of the group $\Map(X, G)$ where $X$ is a compact manifold and $G$ is a Lie group. If $X$ is a complex curve we obtain a simple construction of the extension by the Picard variety $\Pic(X)$. The construction is easily adapted to the extension of $\Aut(E)$, the gauge group of automorphisms of a nontrivial vector bundle $E$.

7 pages, harvmac. References added

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Low-Energy Limit of Yang-Mills with Massless Adjoint Quarks: Chiral Lagrangian and Skyrmions