Killing sections and sigma models with Lie algebroid targets

Abstract

We define and examine the notion of a Killing section of a Riemannian Lie algebroid as a natural generalisation of a Killing vector field. We show that the various expression for a vector field to be Killing naturally generalise to the setting of Lie algebroids. As an application we examine the internal symmetries of a class of sigma models for which the target space is a Riemannian Lie algebroid. Critical points of these sigma models are interpreted as generalised harmonic maps.