Derivations, extensions, and rigidity of subalgebras of the Witt algebra

Abstract

Let $\Bbbk$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic 0. We study some cohomological properties of Lie subalgebras of the Witt algebra $W = \operatorname{Der}(\Bbbk[t,t^{-1}])$ and the one-sided Witt algebra $W_{\geq -1} = \operatorname{Der}(\Bbbk[t])$. In the first part of the paper, we consider finite codimension subalgebras of $W_{\geq -1}$. We compute derivations and one-dimensional extensions of such subalgebras. These correspond to $\operatorname{Ext}_{U(L)}^1(M,L)$, where $L$ is a subalgebra of $W_{\geq -1}$ and $M$ is a one-dimensional representation of $L$. We find that these subalgebras exhibit a kind of rigidity: their derivations and extensions are controlled by the full one-sided Witt algebra. As an application of these computations, we prove that any isomorphism between finite codimension subalgebras of $W_{\geq -1}$ extends to an automorphism of $W_{\geq -1}$. The second part of the paper is devoted to explaining the observed rigidity. We define a notion of "completely non-split extension" and prove that $W_{\geq -1}$ is the universal completely non-split extension of any of its subalgebras of finite codimension. In some sense, this means that even when studying subalgebras of $W_{\geq -1}$ as abstract Lie algebras, they remember that they are contained in $W_{\geq -1}$. We also consider subalgebras of infinite codimension, explaining the similarities and differences between the finite and infinite codimension situations. Almost all of the results above are also true for subalgebras of the Witt algebra. We summarise results for $W$ at the end of the paper.