Integrating central extensions of Lie algebras via Lie 2-groups

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show how central extensions of (possibly infinite-dimensional) Lie algebras integrate to central extensions of étale Lie 2-groups in the sense of [Get09, Hen08]. In finite dimensions, central extensions of Lie algebras integrate to central extensions of Lie groups, a fact which is due to the vanishing of ${\pi }_2$ for each finite-dimensional Lie group. This fact was used by Cartan (in a slightly other guise) to construct the simply connected Lie group associated to each finite-dimensional Lie algebra.

In infinite dimensions, there is an obstruction for a central extension of Lie algebras to integrate to a central extension of Lie groups. This obstruction comes from non-trivial ${\pi }_2$2 for general Lie groups. We show that this obstruction may be overcome by integrating central extensions of Lie algebras not to Lie groups but to central extensions of étale Lie 2-groups. As an application, we obtain a generalization of Lie’s Third Theorem to infinite-dimensional Lie algebras.