Extending Representations of sl(2) to Witt and Virasoro algebras

Abstract

We study when an sl(2)-representation extends to a representation of the Witt and Virasoro algebras. We give a criterion for extendability and apply it to certain classes of weight sl(2)-modules. For all simple weight sl(2)-modules and those in any of the abelian Krull-Schmidt categories of weight modules whose unique simple object is a dense module, we fully characterize which ones admit extensions, and we obtain explicit expressions for all of them. We also give partial results in the same direction for the abelian categories of weight modules which have two and three simple objects.