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Clifford Structures and Spinor Bundles

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 Cliord structures and spinor bundles
Thomas Friedrich
Institut fur Reine Mathematik, Humboldt Universitat
Ziegelstrasse 13 A, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Andrzej Trautman
Instytut Fizyki Teoretycznej, Uniwersytet Warszawski
Ho_za 69, 00681 Warszawa, Poland
January 22, 1997

Abstract
It is shown that every bundle  ! M of complex, irreducible and faithful mod-
ules over the Cliord bundle of an even-dimensional Riemannian space (M; g) with
local model (V; h) is associated with a cpin (\Cliord") structure on M , this being
an extension of the SO (h)-bundle of orthonormal frames on M to the Cliord group
Cpin (h) = (C   Spin (h))=Z2. An explicit construction is given of the total space of
the Cpin (h)-bundle dening such a structure. A canonical line bundle on a cpin man-
ifold, associated with the spinor norm homomorphism, is identied with a subbundle
of Hom(;   ). The cpin structure restricts to a spin structure i this line bundle is
trivial.

1 Introduction
Spinor elds on Riemannian manifolds can be introduced in at least two ways. Let
(V; h) be the local model of a Riemannian manifold (M; g). If such a manifold has a
spin structure (\if M is spin"),
Spin(h) ! Q0
?
? ?
?
(1) yAd y0
SO (h) ! P ! M;
then, given a spinor representation of Spin(h) in a vector space S , one denes spinor
elds as sections of the associated vector bundle (Q0  S )=Spin(h) ! M . Another
denition [1] focuses on the vector bundle itself: it assumes the existence of a bundle
 ! M of modules over the bundle Cl (g) of Cliord algebras on M . The latter denition
is more general in the sense that the bres of  need not be isomorphic to a spinor
space, carrying an irreducible representation of the Cliord algebra; for example, one
can take for  the bundle ^T M of exterior algebras. One easily sees that a bundle
associated by a spinor representation with a spin structure is a bundle of modules over
Cl (g) (see, e.g., Prop. 3.8 in [2]), but the converse is not true, even if Cl (gx ) ! Endx
is the spinor representation for every x 2 M (Example 2 in Section 4 of this paper).
In this paper, we compare in some detail these two denitions and show that a
bundle  of irreducible modules over Cl (g) is associated with a cpin structure on M ,
this being an extension
Cpin (h) ! Q
?
? ?
?
(2) yAd y
SO (h) ! P ! M;

1
of the SO(h)-bundle of orthonormal frames P to the (special) Cliord group [3]
(3) Cpin (h) = (C   Spin(h))=Z2:
In particular, if (M; g) is proper Riemannian, then the form h is denite and
Spin C (h) = (U 1  Spin(h))=Z2 is the maximal compact subgroup of Cpin (h): in this
case every irreducible module over Cl (g) is associated with a spinC -structure on M ; cf.
Appendix D in [2].

2 Notation and preliminaries

We use a notation and terminology which are largely standard in dierential geometry
and spinor analysis [2, 4]. If S and S 0 are nite-dimensional complex vector spaces,
then Hom(S; S 0 ) is the vector space of all complex-linear maps of S into S 0 and End S =
Hom(S; S ) is an algebra over C . We write S  = Hom(S; C ); if f 2 Hom(S; S 0 ), then
f  2 Hom(S 0; S  ) is dened by hs; f  (t0)i for every s 2 S and t0 2 S 0. A similar
notation is used for real vector spaces.
A quadratic space is dened as a pair (V; h), where V is a real vector space of di-
mension m and h : V ! R is a positive-denite quadratic form. We denote by h~ the
symmetric linear isomorphism of V onto V  , associated with h. The real Cliord alge-
bra Cl (h) corresponding to (V; h) contains R  V as a vector subspace and v2 = h(v) for
every v 2 V . The isometry v 7! v extends to an involution  of the algebra dening
its Z2-grading: Cl (h) = Cl 0 (h)  Cl 1 (h).
All manifolds and their maps are assumed to be smooth. If  : E ! M is a bre
bundle over a manifold M , then Ex =  1(x)  E is the bre over x 2 M ; in particular,
Tx M  TM is the tangent vector space to M at x.

3 Spin spaces and the Cliord group

For simplicity, we restrict ourselves in this paper to even -dimensional spaces and proper
Riemannian manifolds. It is not dicult to generalize our considerations to odd-
dimensional spaces and to pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. If the dimension m of V
is even, m = 2n, then Cl (h) is central simple and has one, up to complex equivalence,
spinor representation in a complex, 2n-dimensional vector space S (of spinors).
We dene a spin space to be a triple (S; V; h), where S is a complex vector space
of dimension 2n and h : V ! R is a positive-denite quadratic form on the real,
2n-dimensional vector subspace V of EndS such that, for every v 2 V , one has v2 =
h(v)idS . Given a spin space (S; V; h), one can identify Cl (h) with the subalgebra of EndS
generated, over the reals, by V  End S . Over the complex numbers, the subspace V
generates C
Cl (h) = EndS ; declaring the elements of V to be odd, one obtains a Z2-
grading of the latter algebra, End S = End 0 S  End1 S . An isomorphism of spin spaces
(S; V; h) and (S 0 ; V 0; h0 ) is dened as an isomorphism ` : S ! S 0 of complex vector
spaces such that `V ` 1 = V 0 .
Proposition 1 To every isometry i of (V; h) onto (V 0; h0 ) there corresponds a complex
line
L(i) = f` 2 Hom(S; S 0 ) j i(v)` = `v for every v 2 V g:
Its non-zero elements are isomorphisms of (S; V; h) onto (S 0 ; V 0; h0 ).
Proof. Indeed, the isometry i extends to an isomorphism of algebras, Cl (h) ! Cl (h0) and
thus yields a faithful and irreducible representation of Cl (h) in S 0 ; every isomorphism
` intertwining the representations of Cl (h) in S and S 0 belongs to L(i). If `; `0 2 L(i)
and ` 6= 0, then ` 1`0 is in the commutant of V  EndS ; therefore, it is a multiple of
the identity.

2
 The (special) Cliord group1 Cpin (h) is dened here as the group of all even auto-
morphisms of the spin space (S; V; h),
Cpin (h) = fa 2 End 0 S j a is invertible and aVa 1 = V g  C
Cl 0 (h):
The spin group Spin(h) is the subgroup of Cpin (h) consisting of the Cliord products
of elements of all sequences of an even number of unit vectors; Spin(h)  Cl 0 (h). Let
C  = C r f0g be the multiplicative group of complex numbers. There is a surjective
homomorphism of groups, C   Spin (h) ! Cpin (h), given by (; a) 7! a; since its
kernel is isomorphic to Z2, one has the isomorphism (3).
The adjoint representation of the Cliord group in V gives rise to the exact sequence
1 ! C  ! Cpin (h) Ad! SO (h) ! 1:

4 Cliord structures, bundles and modules

Consider now an oriented 2n-dimensional manifold M with a metric tensor eld g, hav-
ing an oriented quadratic space (V; h) as a local model; the quadratic spaces (TxM; gx )
and (V; h) are isometric for every x 2 M . One denes the SO (h)-bundle P ! M of
orthonormal frames of coherent orientation on M by putting
P = fp : V ! Tx M j p is an orientation preserving isometry, x 2 M g:
A \Cliord" or cpin structure on M is given by the maps (2) where    : Q ! M
is a Cpin (h)-bundle and (qa) = (q)  Ad(a) holds for every q 2 Q and a 2 Cpin (h).
Since Spin (h) is a subgroup of Cpin (h), if M has a spin structure, then it has a cpin
structure, but not conversely: there are spinC -manifolds that are not spin. If (M; g) is
almost Hermitean, i.e. if it has an orthogonal almost complex structure, then it has a
spinC structure and, therefore, a cpin structure.
With every Riemannian manifold (M; g) there is associated the Cliord bundle
Cl (g) ! M . Its total space is dened as
[
Cl (g) = Cl (gx )
x2M
with a natural manifold structure. A bundle of Cliord modules over Cl (g) is a vector
bundle  ! M together with a Cliord morphism dened here as a linear injective
bundle map
f : TM ! End
having the Cliord property: for every v 2 Tx M one has f (v)2 = gx (v)idx [2, 6]. We
identify TM with its image in End  . It follows from the universality of Cliord algebras
that f extends to a \representation morphism", i.e. to a bundle map F : Cl (g) ! End
= F j Cl (gx ) is a representation
such that Fx def
(4) Fx : Cl (gx) ! Endx
for every x 2 M . In other words, the vector space x is a left module over the algebra
Cl (gx ). The following examples are well-known:
Example 1. The bundle of exterior algebras on M . Put  = ^T M and dene f by
f (v) = vy  + g~x (v) ^  for v 2 Tx M and  2 x .
Example 2. Let (M; g) be an almost Hermitean space and let J be the associated
p
orthogonal almost complex structure. Dene N = fn 2 C
TM j J (n) = 1 ng
1
This name was introduced by Chevalley [3]. R. Lipschitz was the rst to consider groups associated
with Cliord algebras; see [5] and the references given there.

3
p put  = ^N . The map f given, for every n 2 N and  2  , by f (n + n) =
and
2(~g(n)y  + n ^ ) is a Cliord morphism.
Example 3. Bundles of spinors. Let (2) be a cpin structure on M and let  = (Q 
S )=Cpin (h) be the associated bundle of spinors. Every element of  is of the form [(q; s)],
where q 2 Q, s 2 S and [(q; s)] = [(q0; s0 )] i there is a 2 Cpin (h) such that q0 = qa and
s0 = a 1s. In this case, the Cliord morphism is given by f (v)[(q; s)] = [(q; ((q) 1v)s)];
where v 2 Tx M , q 2 Qx and s 2 S ; note that (q) : V ! Tx M is an isometry; one
easily checks that the above denition is correct.

5 Spinor bundles
The main result of this paper is the proof of the converse of the statement appearing
in Example 3. We say that a bundle of Cliord modules  ! M over Cl (g) is a spinor
bundle if the representation (4) is a spinor representation for every x 2 M . For example,
the bundle of Cliord modules described in Example 2 is a spinor bundle.
Proposition 2 Every spinor bundle  ! M on an even-dimensional Rieman-
nian manifold (M; g) with local model (V; h) is isomorphic to the vector bundle
(Q  S )=Cpin (h)! M associated with a cpin structure (2) on that manifold.
Proof. Given a spinor bundle  ! M , one constructs the total space Q of the cpin
structure by taking as the bre Qx the set of all isomorphisms of the spin space (S; V; h)
onto the spin space (x ; Tx M; gx ). The map  : Qx ! Px is given by (q) : V ! Tx M ,
(q)v = qvq 1. If q and q0 2 Qx, then q 1q0 2 Cpin(h); the group Cpin (h) acts freely
and transitively on Qx and (qa) = (q)  Ad(a). It remains to check that the associated
bundle of spinors (Q  S )=Cpin(h) ! M is isomorphic to  ! M : such an isomorphism
is given by [(q; s)] 7! q(s), where q 2 Q and s 2 S .

6 A line bundle associated with spinor bundles

The re ection v 7! (v) = v, is an isometry of (V; h) onto itself; if (S; V; h) is a spin
space and the dimension of V is 2n, then the line L(), dened in Section 3, is spanned
by e2n+1 = e1 : : : e2n 2 GL (S ), where (e1; : : : ; e2n ) is an orthonormal frame in (V; h).
If v 2 V  End S , then v 2 End S  and (v)2 = (v2) = h(v)idS . Therefore,
dening
V  = fv j v 2 V g and h (v) = h(v);
we obtain a spin space (S ; V  ; h) isomorphic to (S; V; h). The map  : V ! V  given
by  (v) = ( 1)nv is an isometry; therefore, there is the line L def = L( )  Hom(S; S );
1
its elements are either symmetric or skew: if ` 2 L, then ` = ( 1) 2 n(n+1) . (The factor
( 1)n in the denition of  is chosen so that e = ( 1)n`e ` 1 holds not only for
 = 1; : : : ; 2n, but also for  = 2n + 1; see x101 in [7]).
The group Cpin(h) has a one-dimensional representation in L and acts transitively
on the space L = L r f0g: the element a 2 Cpin (h) sends ` 2 L to a`a = N(a)`,
where N : Cpin(h) ! C  is the spinor norm homomorphism. The group Spin(h) is now
seen to coincide with the kernel of N. Consider now a manifold with a cpin structure
(2). The representation of Cpin (h) in L denes the complex line bundle
(5)  = (Q  L)=Cpin(h) ! M:
Proposition 3 Let (M; g) be a Riemannian cpin manifold with a local model (V; h).
This manifold is spin if, and only if, the line bundle (5) is trivial.

4
Proof. Assume rst that (5) is trivial. A nowhere vanishing section of this bundle
corresponds to a map : Q ! L such that (qa) = N(a 1 )(q), where q 2 Q and
a 2 Cpin (h). Let `0 2 L. The set Q0 = fq 2 Q j (q) = `0 g is the total space of a
spin structure on M . Conversely, given a reduction Q0 of Q to Spin(h), one constructs
a nowhere vanishing section of (5) by dening the equivariant map  so that (q) = `0
for every q 2 Q0.
The group Cpin (h) can be interpreted as the conformal spin group [8, 9]. Dening
CO (h) = (C   SO(h))=Z2, one has the exact sequence
1 ! Z2 ! Cpin (h) ! CO (h) ! 1;
where  is given by (a)v = N(a)ava 1 for a 2 Cpin (h) and v 2 V .

Acknowledgments
Work on this paper was started in November 1996 in Berlin, during the second author's
visit to the Institut fur Reine Mathematik of Humboldt University. That visit was
nanced by the Sonderforschungsbereich 288 Dierentialgeometrie und Quantenphysik.
This research was also supported in part with funds provided by the Foundation for
Polish-German cooperation.

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[2] H. Blaine Lawson, Jr. and M.-L. Michelsohn, Spin Geometry, Princeton University
Press, Princeton, 1989.
[3] C. Chevalley, The Algebraic Theory of Spinors, Columbia University Press, New
York, 1954.
[4] S. Kobayashi and K. Nomizu, Foundations of Dierential Geometry, vol. I and 2,
Interscience, New York, 1963 and 1969.
[5] R. Lipschitz, Correspondence, from an ultramundane correspondent, Ann. of Math.
69 (1959) 247{251.
[6] J. J. Duistermaat, The Heat Kernel Lefschetz Fixed Point Formula for the Spin-c
Dirac Operator, Birkhauser, Basel, 1996.
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Hermann, Paris, 1938.
[8] F. Reese Harvey, Spinors and Calibrations, Academic Press, Boston, 1990.
[9] I. Robinson and A. Trautman, The conformal geometry of complex quadrics and
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5391{5406.