Multiplicative Ehresmann connections

Abstract: We develop the theory of multiplicative Ehresmann connections for Lie groupoid submersions covering the identity, as well as their infinitesimal counterparts. We construct obstructions to the existence of such connections, and we prove existence for several interesting classes of Lie groupoids and Lie algebroids, including all proper Lie groupoids. We show that many notions from the theory of principal bundle connections have analogues in this general setup, including connections 1-forms, curvature 2-forms, Bianchi identity, etc. In [17] we provide a non-trivial application of the results obtained here to construct local models in Poisson geometry and to obtain linearization results around Poisson submanifolds.