Positive energy representations of Sobolev diffeomorphism groups of the circle

We show that any positive energy projective unitary representation of $$\mathrm{Diff}_+(S^1)$$ Diff + ( S 1 ) extends to a strongly continuous projective unitary representation of the fractional Sobolev diffeomorphisms $$\mathcal {D}^s(S^1)$$ D s ( S 1 ) for any real $$s>3$$ s > 3 , and in particular to $$C^k$$ C k -diffeomorphisms $$\mathrm{Diff}_+^k(S^1)$$ Diff + k ( S 1 ) with $$k\ge 4$$ k ≥ 4 . A similar result holds for the universal covering groups provided that the representation is assumed to be a direct sum of irreducibles. As an application we show that a conformal net of von Neumann algebras on $$S^1$$ S 1 is covariant with respect to $$\mathcal {D}^s(S^1)$$ D s ( S 1 ) , $$s > 3$$ s > 3 . Moreover every direct sum of irreducible representations of a conformal net is also $$\mathcal {D}^s(S^1)$$ D s ( S 1 ) -covariant.