Related papers: Gerbes, Holonomy Forms and Real Structures
This thesis introduces the notion of "relative gerbes" for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree three.…
We survey several mathematical developments in the holonomy approach to gauge theory. A cornerstone of this approach is the introduction of group structures on spaces of based loops on a smooth manifold, relying on certain homotopy…
Let h^{*} be a multiplicative cohomology theory, h_{*} its dual homology theory and \hat{h}^{*} a differential refinement. We first construct the natural pairing between h_{*} and the flat part of \hat{h}^{*}, generalizing the holonomy of a…
Holonomy invariants in strict higher gauge theory have been studied in depth, aiming to applications to higher Chern-Simons theory. For a flat 2-connection, the holonomy of surface knots of arbitrary genus has been defined and its…
We study a generalization of the isomonodromic deformation to the case of connections with irregular singularities. We call this generalization Isostokes Deformation. A new deformation parameter arises: one can deform the formal normal…
We consider various $A_{\infty}$-algebras of differential (super)forms, which are related to gauge theories and demonstrate explicitly how certain reformulations of gauge theories lead to the transfer of the corresponding…
This article is a follow-up of ``Holonomy and Path Structures in General Relativity and Yang-Mills Theory" by Barrett, J. W. (Int.J.Theor.Phys., vol.30, No.9, 1991). Its main goal is to provide an alternative proof of this part of the…
We develop the theory of Chern-Simons bundle 2-gerbes and multiplicative bundle gerbes associated to any principal $G$-bundle with connection and a class in $H^4(BG, \ZZ)$ for a compact semi-simple Lie group $G$. The Chern-Simons bundle…
This paper generalizes Bismut's equivariant Chern character to the setting of abelian gerbes. In particular, associated to an abelian gerbe with connection, an equivariantly closed differential form is constructed on the space of maps of a…
In this paper we establish a one-to-one correspondence between $S^1$-gerbes with connections, on the one hand, and their holonomies, for simply connected manifolds, or their parallel transports, in the general case, on the other hand. This…
We provide a suitable axiomatic framework for differential cohomology in the relative case and we deduce the corresponding long exact sequences. We also construct the relative version of the generalized Cheeger-Simons characters and we…
Generalized connections and their calculus have been developed in the context of quantum gravity. Here we apply them to abelian Chern-Simons theory. We derive the expectation values of holonomies in U(1) Chern-Simons theory using Stokes'…
We study holonomy representations admitting a pair of supplementary faithful sub-representations. In particular the cases where the sub-representations are isomorphic respectively dual to each other are treated. In each case we have a…
Aimed at complex geometers and representation theorists, this survey explores higher dimensional analogues of the rich interplay between Riemann surfaces, Virasoro and Kac-Moody Lie algebras, and conformal blocks. We introduce a panoply of…
We complete the details of a theory outlined by Kontsevich and Soibelman that associates to a semi-algebraic set a certain graded commutative differential algebra of "semi-algebraic differential forms" in a functorial way. This algebra…
In this paper, we apply the theory of Chern-Cheeger-Simons to construct canonical invariants associated to a $r$-simplex whose points parametrize flat connections on a smooth manifold $X$. These invariants lie in degrees…
For smooth finite dimensional manifolds, we characterise gerbes with connection as functors on a certain surface cobordism category. This allows us to relate gerbes with connection to Turaev's 1+1-dimensional homotopy quantum field…
It is well known that rational 2D conformal field theories are connected with Chern-Simons theories defined on 3D real manifolds. We consider holomorphic analogues of Chern-Simons theories defined on 3D complex manifolds (six real…
We extend the formality theorem of Maxim Kontsevich from deformations of the structure sheaf on a manifold to deformations of gerbes on smooth and complex manifolds.
Connections and curvings on gerbes are beginning to play a vital role in differential geometry and mathematical physics -- first abelian gerbes, and more recently nonabelian gerbes. These concepts can be elegantly understood using the…