Dirac structures and Dixmier-Douady bundles

Abstract

A Dirac structure on a vector bundle V is a maximal isotropic subbundle E of the direct sum of V with its dual. We show how to associate to any Dirac structure a Dixmier-Douady bundle A, that is, a Z/2Z-graded bundle of C*-algebras with typical fiber the compact operators on a Hilbert space. The construction has good functorial properties, relative to Morita morphisms of Dixmier-Douady bundles. As applications, we show that the `spin' Dixmier-Douady bundle over a compact, connected Lie group (as constructed by Atiyah-Segal) is multiplicative, and we obtain a canonical `twisted Spin-c-structure' on spaces with group valued moment maps.