Resolution of smooth group actions

A refined form of the ‘Folk Theorem’ that a smooth action by a compact Lie group can be (canonically) resolved, by iterated blow up, to have unique isotropy type is proved in the context of manifolds with corners. This procedure is shown to capture the simultaneous resolution of all isotropy types i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Albin, Pierre, Melrose, Richard B.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Mathematical Society 2013
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82004
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1494-8228
Description
Summary:A refined form of the ‘Folk Theorem’ that a smooth action by a compact Lie group can be (canonically) resolved, by iterated blow up, to have unique isotropy type is proved in the context of manifolds with corners. This procedure is shown to capture the simultaneous resolution of all isotropy types in a ‘resolution structure’ consisting of equivariant iterated fibrations of the boundary faces. This structure projects to give a similar resolution structure for the quotient. In particular these results apply to give a canonical resolution of the radial compactification, to a ball, of any finite dimensional representation of a compact Lie group; such resolutions of the normal action of the isotropy groups appear in the boundary fibers in the general case.