Related papers: Gerbes, Holonomy Forms and Real Structures

This paper is a gentle introduction to some recent results involving the theory of gerbes over orbifolds for topologists, geometers and physicists. We introduce gerbes on manifolds, orbifolds, the Dixmier-Douady class, Beilinson-Deligne…

Hermitian bundle gerbes with connection are geometric objects for which a notion of surface holonomy can be defined for closed oriented surfaces. We systematically introduce bundle gerbes by closing the pre-stack of trivial bundle gerbes…

We construct geometrically a gerbe assigned to a connection on a principal SU(2)-bundle over an oriented closed 1-dimensional manifold. If the connection is given by the restriction of a connection on a bundle over a compact 2-manifold…

We study the holonomy that is associated to a sub-Riemannian structure defined on the kernel of a global contact form. This includes the holonomy of Schouten's horizontal connection as well as of the adapted connection, both canonical…

In the paper [1] (arXiv:math/0408333) the authors discuss two possible definitions of the relative Cheeger-Simons characters, the second one fitting into a long exact sequence. Here we relate that picture to the one of the relative Deligne…

We extend the notion of connection in order to be able to study singular geometric structures, namely, we consider a notion of connection on a Lie algebroid which is a natural extension of the usual concept of connection. Using connections,…

This is a mostly self-contained survey article about bundle gerbes and some of their recent applications in geometry, field theory, and quantisation. We cover the definition of bundle gerbes with connection and their morphisms, and explain…

Given a flat connection on a manifold with values in a filtered L-infinity-algebra, we construct a morphism of coalgebras that generalizes the holonomies of flat connections with values in Lie algebras. The construction is based on…

We study Cheeger-Simons differential characters and provide geometric descriptions of the ring structure and of the fiber integration map. The uniqueness of differential cohomology (up to unique natural transformation) is proved by deriving…

Holonomy groups and holonomy algebras for connections on locally free sheaves over supermanifolds are introduced. A one-to-one correspondence between parallel sections and holonomy-invariant vectors, and a one-to-one correspondence between…

This paper introduces the notion of ``relative gerbes'' for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are further classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree…

This is the first of a series of two technical papers devoted to the analysis of holonomy invariants in strict higher gauge theory with end applications in higher Chern--Simons theory. For a flat 2--connection, we define the 2-holonomy of…

In this paper we give a short introduction to our results on the holonomy of gerbe-connections and explain our motivation coming from state-sum models.

In this paper we compute explicit formulas for the holonomy map for a gerbe with connection over an orbifold. We show that the holonomy descends to a transgression map in Deligne cohomology. We prove that this recovers both the inner local…

We consider the geometric quantisation of Chern--Simons theory for closed genus-one surfaces and semisimple complex groups. First we introduce the natural complexified analogue of the Hitchin connection in K\"{a}hler quantisation, with…

In this paper we introduce the Cheeger-Simons cohomology of a global quotient orbifold. We prove that the Cheeger-Simons cohomology of the orbifold is isomorphic to its Beilinson-Deligne cohomology. Furthermore we construct a string…

The notion of a gerbe with connection is conveniently reformulated in terms of the simplicial deRham complex. In particular the usual Chern-Weil and Chern-Simons theory is well adapted to this framework and rather easily gives rise to…

We introduce an axiomatic framework for the parallel transport of connections on gerbes. It incorporates parallel transport along curves and along surfaces, and is formulated in terms of gluing axioms and smoothness conditions. The…

First we express the holonomy along a boundary curve as the integral on the domain, of an expression which is linear in the curvature. Then we provide a rigorous justification of the definition of curvature in Regge calculus.

Holonomy algebras arise naturally in the classical description of Yang-Mills fields and gravity, and it has been suggested, at a heuristic level, that they may also play an important role in a non-perturbative treatment of the quantum…