Integrating central extensions of Lie algebras via Lie 2-groups

The purpose of this paper is to show how central extensions of (possibly infinite-dimensional) Lie algebras integrate to central extensions of \'etale Lie 2-groups. In finite dimensions, central extensions of Lie algebras integrate to central extensions of Lie groups, a fact which is due to the vanishing of \pi_2 for each finite-dimensional Lie group. This fact was used by Cartan (in a slightly other guise) to construct the simply connected Lie group associated to each finite-dimensional Lie algebra. In infinite dimensions, there is an obstruction for a central extension of Lie algebras to integrate to a central extension of Lie groups. This obstruction comes from non-trivial \pi_2 for general Lie groups. We show that this obstruction may be overcome by integrating central extensions of Lie algebras not to Lie groups but to central extensions of \'etale Lie 2-groups. As an application, we obtain a generalization of Lie's Third Theorem to infinite-dimensional Lie algebras.