Related papers: Lifting Problems and Transgression for Non-Abelian…
We define the notion of adjustment for strict Lie 2-groups and provide the complete cocycle description for non-Abelian gerbes with connections whose structure 2-group is an adjusted 2-group. Most importantly, we depart from the common…
We prove that the category of abelian gerbes with connection over a smooth manifold is equivalent to a certain category of principal bundles over the free loop space. These bundles are equipped with a connection and with a "fusion" product…
Higher gauge theory for non-abelian structure 2-groups faces significant challenges when extending beyond the fake-flat sector, which suffers from limited applicability in physical models. A promising resolution involves equipping 2-groups…
A gauge theory is associated with a principal bundle endowed with a connection permitting to define horizontal lifts of paths. The horizontal lifts of surfaces cannot be defined into a principal bundle structure. An higher gauge theory is…
We show that the category of abelian gerbes over a smooth manifold is equivalent to a certain category of principal bundles over the free loop space. These principal bundles are equipped with fusion products and are equivariant with respect…
We review and then combine two aspects of the theory of bundle gerbes. The first concerns lifting bundle gerbes and connections on those, developed by Murray and Gomi. Lifting gerbes represent obstructions against extending the structure…
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…
We review a systematic construction of the 2-stack of bundle gerbes via descent, and extend it to non-abelian gerbes. We review the role of non-abelian gerbes in orientifold sigma models, for the anomaly cancellation in supersymmetric sigma…
While higher bundles are of clear relevance to higher gauge theory, examples other than abelian bundle gerbes are hard to come across. One would in particular like to see 2-bundles where the structure 2-group is the String 2-group…
The topological classification of gerbes, as principal bundles with the structure group the projective unitary group of a complex Hilbert space, over a topological space $H$ is given by the third cohomology $\text{H}^3(H, \Bbb Z)$. When $H$…
We prove that isomorphism classes of principal bundles over a diffeological space are in bijection to certain maps on its free loop space, both in a setup with and without connections on the bundles. The maps on the loop space are smooth…
We recall and partially improve four versions of smooth, non-abelian gerbes: Cech cocycles, classifying maps, bundle gerbes, and principal 2-bundles. We prove that all these four versions are equivalent, and so establish new relations…
In this paper, we study non-abelian extensions of strict Lie 2-algebras via the cohomology theory. A non-abelian extension of a strict Lie 2-algebra $\g$ by $\frkh$ gives rise to a strict homomorphism from $\g$ to $\SOut(\frkh)$.…
We study torsors over 2-groups and their morphisms. In particular, we study the first non-abelian cohomology group with values in a 2-group. Butterfly diagrams encode morphisms of 2-groups and we employ them to examine the functorial…
I categorify the definition of fibre bundle, replacing smooth manifolds with differentiable categories, Lie groups with coherent Lie 2-groups, and bundles with a suitable notion of 2-bundle. To link this with previous work, I show that…
Just as gauge theory describes the parallel transport of point particles using connections on bundles, higher gauge theory describes the parallel transport of 1-dimensional objects (e.g. strings) using 2-connections on 2-bundles. A 2-bundle…
We argue that the relevant higher gauge group for the non-abelian generalization of the self-dual string equation is the string 2-group. We then derive the corresponding equations of motion and discuss their properties. The underlying…
Lifting supersymmetric quantum mechanics to loop space yields the superstring. A particle charged under a fiber bundle thereby turns into a string charged under a 2-bundle, or gerbe. This stringification is nothing but categorification. We…
In this paper, we develop the mathematical formulation of metric string structures. These play a crucial role in the formulation of certain six-dimensional superconformal field theories and we believe that they also underlie potential…
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…