The Quill 22 ~ de Rham Class Field Theory and Fourier Transform on $\mathcal{D}$-modules

I realize that there have been many posts in the Quill series about math. Many apologies for that.
Let $G$ be an abelian variety. We define the 1-shifted Cartier duality (following Ben-Zvi's notations) to be

$$(G [1])^V = Hom(G, \mathbb{G}_m)$$ But there is a slight issue in the algebraic geometric side of the usual $\mathcal{B}$ side. Instead, let us do the class field theory in de Rham space. We can define $X_{dR}$ for an abelian and smooth variety $X$ as $$X_{dR} = X/\hat{\Delta}$$ where $\hat{\Delta}$ is the formal neighbourhood of the diagonal. It just imposes a relation $x \sim y$ if $x$ and $y$ are infinitesimally close to the identity. (A nice physics equivalent description is modding out the local gauge redundancy.) Though it is not technically a scheme, it is enough to do algebraic geometry. Actually, at many places, it is defined as a functor of points. So we will consider (quasic-coherent) sheaves on it. $$QC(X_{dR}) = QC(X)^\Delta$$ which is just another way of saying that $QC(X_{dR})$ contains flat-connections given by the identification $\mathcal{F}_x \xrightarrow{\sim} \mathcal{F}_y$ if $\mathcal{F}_x$ and $\mathcal{F}_y$ are $x$ and $y$ are infitemsally close. Actually, the following is true and interesting $$QC(X_{dR}) = \mathcal{D}_X-Mod$$ where $\mathcal{D}_X$ is the category of quasi-coherent sheaves. So the flat connections are exactly $\mathcal{D}$ modules. In physics, one can translate this by saying that the sheaves of $X_{dR}$ give the solutions to the Yang-Mills equation $F=dA + A \wedge A= 0$, so basically flat gauge field configurations.

All right. Let us take an abelian group $G$, then we can define the de Rham space of $G$ as $$G_{dR} = G/\hat{G}$$ where $\hat{G}$ is the formal neighbourhood of identity (same as before). A very good example is a vector space. The original Fourier-Mukai dual of $V$ has to do with the classifying space of the formal completion of the dual (we may discuss this in the following Quill(s)). But for $V_{dR}$ it is more interesting. Firstly, for $V$ (an abelian group) $$V_{dR}= V/ \hat{V}$$ Or equivalently, it is a chain complex (derived algebraic geometry) $V_{dR} = [ \hat{V} \to V]$. Now, the $1-$shifted Cartier duality is $$(V/\hat{V})^V [1]= (V^*/\hat{V}^*)$$ so $V_{dR}$ is canonically self-dual. Which means many things. But the best is that $\mathcal{D}(V) \simeq \mathcal{D}(V^*)$. This is better said as a Fourier transform of $\mathcal{D}$-modules. And it is nothing but the algebraic-geometric incarnation of electric-magnetic duality.

This is one nice symmetric way of doing abelian class field theory in algebraic geometry.
To learn more, see this paper by Ben-Zvi and Nadler.

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2 Responses to The Quill 22 ~ de Rham Class Field Theory and Fourier Transform on $\mathcal{D}$-modules

  1. "Many posts in the Quill series about math" Aayush you grossly underestimate how much of your blog is incomprehensible mathematics. Please keep up the good work, hoping to understand at least one of your posts at some point.

  2. @Vaibhav 'how much of your blog is incomprehensible mathematics'
    Really? I always think these are trivial notes which are not suitable for more formal logs.

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