Infinitesimal aspects of idempotents in Banach algebras

Abstract

We investigate infinitesimal properties of sets of ordered $n$-uples of idempotents in a symmetric Banach $*$-algebra. These sets are called flag manifolds and carry several interesting bundles that hold an important role in some areas of operator theory. In this direction, we introduce and study Stiefel bundles on flag manifolds, which are extensions of the well known Stiefel bundles on Grassmannians. The main ingredient of our investigation is the notion of connection on an infinite-dimensional bundle, and we survey some equivalent ocurrences of such a notion in the literature.