A Klein geometry is a pair where is a Lie group and is a closed Lie subgroup of such that the coset space
is connected. We can call the "underlying geometrical space" (non-standard terminology). (If were not connected it would be say that we have a Klein geometry non geometrically oriented. This has nothing to do with being an oriented manifold).
A Klein geometry is effective if the largest subgroup that is normal in is . The idea is that in this case the action of on is effective, that is, can be injected in the bijections group of .
Observe that acts transitively on and is the isotropy group of a point This construction can therefore be reversed and say that a Klein geometry is a homogeneous space, and appears as the isotropy group of certain . The choice of is not important, because all the isotropy groups are conjugate.
This theorem shows that this reversed construction is fine even in the smooth manifolds category: Theorem Let be a Lie group and be a closed Lie subgroup of . Then there exists a unique smooth structure on the quotient space , denoted by , such that becomes a smooth manifold and the natural action of on is smooth. Further, suppose is a smooth manifold on which acts smoothly and transitively. Let and denote the stability subgroup at . Then the map
is a smooth diffeomorphism from onto . Proof Theorem 2.9.4 in V. S Varadarajan. Lie Groups, Lie Algebras, and Their Representations. 1st ed. Springer,1984
What this theorem says is that if there is a Lie group and a Lie subgroup, their quotient is a smooth manifold. On the other hand, it also says that if there is a Lie group that acts smoothly and transitively on a smooth manifold, then the stabilizer of any point (which is closed) can be quoted with the Lie group which then becomes the manifold in question. Observation: if the group is not closed the action is not proper and the quotient is not a manifold. See example in @sharpe2000differential page 146.
Examples:
The pair , that is the same as the homogeneous space
Given a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, if we denote the group of its isometries and take for certain the pair is a Klein geometry (I think). And also I think that we can recover the metric from the pair (????)
Relation with Cartan geometry
A Klein geometry gives rise to a principal -bundle
The Maurer-Cartan form of as a Lie group and the Maurer-Cartan form as principal bundle of are related. That is to say, since is a Lie group itself, then we can think of the "global" Maurer-Cartan form . And since it is a principal bundle we can think of the "fibrewise" Maurer-Cartan form (the stands for "principal bundle"). For any we have but if then also
Proof
Suppose , then by definition. But since , by definition of the exponential map, then
and so . But we need to show that in order to apply . I think that this must be easily deduced from ...
In this sense, the Maurer-Cartan form of is a Cartan connection and therefore the Klein geometry gives rise to a Cartan geometry.
Given a Klein geometry or homogeneous space with , we can construct others. For example, consider a subset , and the stabilizer , which I think is closed. Then is a new Klein geometry with underlying geometrical space
being . So we have the homogeneous space The points of this space are "copies" of the subset under the transformations given by .
Observe that there is a bijection between and , given trivially by
For example, consider , being the direct motions, for simplicity. We can consider an equilateral triangle with side 2 units. Then we can think that we are studying a space whose points are the different equilateral triangles with side 2 units that you can put in . This corresponds to shrink to . The points in space are not "so rounded" as those ones in , since now they are sensible to some rotations.
On the other hand, If we shrink to then we obtain being the whole but no natural choice of identity , that is, a -torsor. The points of have became the most sensitive posible. It is as if we stick a rotation sensor to every point in the plane, so no motion in leaves them invariant.
On the contrary, if we extend instead of shrink it, we obtain less points. An extreme example: suppose we take , then has only one element, the whole .
So given a group (which Klein called principal group) that we can think as acting over a -torsor we have that every subgroup of is associated with a "basic object of study", a "feature", and a space that is the collection of all these "features" that appear by applying elements of to the basic "feature" (see [Wise 2009] page 7).
Another approach
The group establishes what kind of transformations do we start with (continuous, smooth, rigid,...?). The torsor is the bigger geometrical space in relation with (I think that in a bigger space the action wouldn't be transitive). And by fixing subgroups of we are creating smaller geometrical spaces, the space of -orbits, that can be more interesting. For example, the group of direct rigid motions , when we consider the subgroup of rotations, gives rise to the usual euclidean plane. It is like if are the different states of a "being", and when we deactivate some "senses" of that "being" appear smaller spaces.
This can be thought in the following way. Consider your smartphone but in a flat 2-dimensional world. Thanks to the GPS and orientation sensor, there are lots of posible "states" for the phone: every position and every orientation is different for it. If we "disconnect" the orientation sensor in our phone, then the different states are only the positions, and this is equivalent to consider as a whole the entire orbit of a point rotated over itself. That is to say, taking , the rotations around a base point .
Observe that in the picture, if we fix a point we have an identification between points and cosets
being such that . Also, observe that given
and is a "rotation" around the point . This way is easier to understand the picture.
Anyway, I think this is a special case, because the group has structure of semidirect product. When this happens, that is, when we have a Klein geometry in such a way that , then the geometrical space is bijective to , and acts on in a free and transitive way, that is, is a -torsor. Proof:
Another example: bugs living in a plane that can translate horizontally and vertically but which cannot rotate. For them, the relevant transformations are and the geometrical space is, in principle, the whole Suppose that a kind of translations is less important than other, those performed in a certain direction (maybe because of the shape of their bodies they are easier to perform, or consume less energy to them...). Let be the subgroup of given by this easier translations. Then their consciousness may be focus on a smaller space (a real line) because is what is important for their survival.
Related idea: sweeping the porch of my little cabin. Since is much easier to sweep in one direction (is almost "free") my sub consciousness treat the porch like being 1-dimensional.
About recovering the geometric properties of from the pair
I have found that the key is in the adjoint representation of over . Because in this context we can look for invariant subspaces and I guess that "inside" is hidden the information for the geometry. I have seen a good explanation in Parabolic Geometries, by Andreas Cap and Jan Slovak, page 6, but I don't fully understand yet.
I have also found useful the foreword of Differential geometry, Cartan's generalization of Klein Erlangen program, by Sharpe and Chern; although I cannot see yet how the Maurer-Cartan form let us recover the metric.