Nonlinear flag manifolds as coadjoint orbits

Abstract

A nonlinear flag is a finite sequence of nested closed submanifolds. We study the geometry of Frechet manifolds of nonlinear flags, in this way generalizing the nonlinear Grassmannians. As an application we describe a class of coadjoint orbits of the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms that consist of nested symplectic submanifolds, i.e., symplectic nonlinear flags.