Pseudogroups and geometric structures

The space of (local) symmetries of a given geometric structure has the natural structure of a Lie (pseudo)group. Conversely, geometric structures admitting a local model can be described via the pseudogroup of symmetries of such local model.

This philosophy can be made precise at various levels of generality (depending on the definition of « geometric structure ») and using different tools/methods. In this talk I will present some aspects of a new framework, which includes previous formalisms (e.g. G-structures or Cartan geometries) and allows us to prove integrability theorems.

A main novelty of this point of view consists of the fact that it uncovers the (beautiful!) hidden structures behind Lie pseudogroups and geometric structures. Indeed, the relevant objects which make this approach work are Lie groupoids endowed with a multiplicative « PDE-structure », their principal actions, and the related Morita theory. Poisson geometry provides the guiding principle to understand those objects, which are directly inspired from, respectively, symplectic groupoids, principal Hamiltonian bundles, and symplectic Morita equivalence.

This is based on a forthcoming book written jointly with Luca Accornero, Marius Crainic and María Amelia Salazar.