Conformal Symmetry Breaking Differential Operators on Differential Forms

Book excerpt: We study conformal symmetry breaking differential operators which map dif-ferential forms on Rn to differential forms on a codimension one subspace Rn−1. These operators are equivariant with respect to the conformal Lie algebra of the subspace Rn−1. They correspond to homomorphisms of generalized Verma mod-ules for so(n, 1) into generalized Verma modules for so(n+1, 1) both being induced from fundamental form representations of a parabolic subalgebra. We apply the F -method to derive explicit formulas for such homomorphisms. In particular, we find explicit formulas for the generators of the intertwining operators of the re-lated branching problems restricting generalized Verma modules for so(n +1, 1) to so(n, 1). As consequences, we derive closed formulas for all conformal symmetry breaking differential operators in terms of the first-order operators d, δ, d¯ and δ¯ and certain hypergeometric polynomials. A dominant role in these studies is played by two infinite sequences of symmetry breaking differential operators which depend on a complex parameter λ. Their values at special values of λ appear as factors in two systems of factorization identities which involve the Branson-Gover opera- tors of the Euclidean metrics on Rn and Rn−1 and the operators d, δ, d¯ and δ¯ as factors, respectively. Moreover, they naturally recover the gauge companion and Q-curvature operators of the Euclidean metric on the subspace Rn−1, respectively.