On dual pairs in Dirac Geometry

Abstract: In this note we discuss dual pairs in Dirac geometry. We show that this notion appears naturally when studying the problem of pushing forward a Dirac structure along a surjective submersion, and we prove a Dirac-theoretic version of Libermann's theorem from Poisson geometry. Our main result is an explicit construction of strong self-dual pairs for Dirac structures. This theorem not only recovers the global construction of symplectic realizations from [Crainic-Marcut 2011], but allows for a more conceptual understanding of it, yielding a simpler and more natural proof. As an application of the main theorem, we present a different approach to the recent normal form theorem around Dirac transversals from [Bursztyn-Lima-Meinrenken 2016].