Homotopy type of symplectomorphism groups of S^2 X S^2

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the topology of the symplectomorphism group of a product of two 2-dimensional spheres when the ratio of their areas lies in the interval (1,2]. More precisely we compute the homotopy type of this symplectomorphism group and we also show that the group contains two finite dimensional Lie groups generating the homotopy. A key step in this work is to calculate the mod 2 homology of the group of symplectomorphisms. Although this homology has a finite number of generators with respect to the Pontryagin product, it is unexpected large containing in particular a free noncommutative ring with 3 generators.