Gerbal Representations of Double Loop Groups

Abstract

A crucial role in representation theory of loop groups of reductive Lie groups and their Lie algebras is played by their nontrivial second cohomology classes, which give rise to their central extensions (the affine Kac–Moody groups and Lie algebras). Loop groups embed into the group GL∞ of continuous automorphisms of C((t)), and these classes come from a second cohomology class of GL∞. In a similar way, double loop groups embed into a group of automorphisms of C((t))((s)), denoted by GL∞,∞, which has a nontrivial third cohomology. In this paper, we explain how to realize a third cohomology class in representation theory of a group: it naturally arises when we consider representations on categories rather than vector spaces. We call them “gerbal representations”. We then construct a gerbal representation of GL∞,∞ (and hence of double loop groups), realizing its nontrivial third cohomology class, on a category of modules over an infinite-dimensional Clifford algebra. This is a two-dimensional analog of the fermionic Fock representations of the ordinary loop groups.