Spinc group


In spin geometry, a spinc group is a Lie group obtained by the spin group through twisting with the first unitary group. C stands for the complex numbers, which are denoted. An important application of spinc groups is for spinc structures, which are central for Seiberg–Witten theory.

Definition

The spin group is a double cover of the special orthogonal group, hence acts on it with. Furthermore, also acts on the first unitary group through the antipodal identification. The spinc group is then:
with. It is also denoted. Using the exceptional isomorphism, one also has with:

Low-dimensional examples

For all higher abelian homotopy groups, one has:
for.

Literature

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