A local generalisation of frame bundles

Abstract

Frame bundles equipped with a principal connection have their local structure characterised by a 1-form, called the Cartan connection 1-form, which gathers the principal connection form and the soldering form. We introduce generalised frame bundles as a smooth manifold equipped with a coframe with value in a suitable Lie algebra and which furthermore satisfies a weakened version of the Maurer-Cartan equation. From this structure it is possible to construct a Lie algebra action on the manifold. We study the question of whether it is possible to construct a Lie group action and build a base manifold over which the initial manifold is a frame bundle. We find that generalised frame bundles can have singular underlying manifolds.