Theory of connections on graded principal bundles

Abstract

The geometry of graded principal bundles is discussed in the framework of graded manifold theory of Kostant-Berezin-Leites. In particular, we prove that a graded principal bundle is globally trivial if and only if it admits a global graded section and, further, that the sheaf of vertical derivations on such a bundle coincides with the graded distribution induced by the action of the structure graded Lie group. This result leads to a natural definition of the graded connection in terms of graded distributions; its relation with Lie superalgebra-valued graded differential forms is also exhibited. Finally, we define the curvature for the graded connection; we prove that the curvature controls the involutivity of the horizontal graded distribution corresponding to the graded connection.