On the holonomy of Lie algebroids

Abstract

We introduce a holonomy groupoid for Lie algebroids. This construction generalizes both the holonomy groupoid of a foliation and the adjoint representation of a Lie algebra. We prove that the resulting groupoid is longitudinally smooth and compute its Lie algebroid. When the algebroid of the holonomy groupoid coincides with the given Lie algebroid, the holonomy groupoid is the canonical terminal integration: every source-connected integration admits a unique morphism into it inducing the identity infinitesimally. To construct the groupoid structure on the holonomy groupoid, we utilize the notion of the "flow product" of time-dependent sections of a Lie algebroid. This provides an alternative way to define the groupoid structure for the Weinstein groupoid.