Related papers: Chern-Weil theory for certain infinite-dimensional…

We extend finite dimensional Chern-Simons theory to certain infinite dimensional principal bundles with connections, in particular to the frame bundle $FLM\to LM$ over the loop space of a Riemannian manifold $M$. Chern-Simons forms are…

What are called secondary characteristic classes in Chern-Weil theory are a refinement of ordinary characteristic classes of principal bundles from cohomology to differential cohomology. We consider the problem of refining the construction…

Witten introduced classical Chern-Simons theory to topology in 1989, when he defined an invariant for knots in 3-manifolds by an integral over a certain infinite-dimensional space, which up to today have not been entirely understood.…

In this paper we propose a new treatment about infinite dimensional manifolds, using the language of category and functor. Our definition of infinite dimensional manifolds is a natural generalization of finite dimensional manifolds in the…

We propose the notion of a supercategory as an alternative approach to supermathematics. We show that this setting is rich to carry out many of the basic constructions of supermathematics. We also prove generalizations of a number of…

In this paper we analyse the topological group cohomology of finite-dimensional Lie groups. We introduce a technique for computing it (as abelian groups) for torus coefficients by the naturally associated long exact sequence. The upshot in…

We discuss possible extensions of the classical Chern-Weil formalism to an infinite dimensional setup. This is based on joint work with Steven Rosenberg, joint work with Simon Scott and joint work with Jouko Mickelsson.

Several authors have recently constructed characteristic classes for classes of infinite rank vector bundles appearing in topology and physics. These include the tangent bundle to the space of maps between closed manifolds, the infinite…

Quantum Chern-Simons invariants of differentiable manifolds are analyzed from the point of view of homological algebra. Given a manifold M and a Lie (or, more generally, an L-infinity) algebra g, the vector space H^*(M) \otimes g has the…

We show that Chern-Weil theory for tensor bundles over manifolds is a consequence of the existence of natural closed differential forms on total spaces of torsion free connections on frame bundles.

Chern-Weil theory provides for each invariant polynomial on a Lie algebra g a map from g-connections to differential cocycles whose volume holonomy is the corresponding Chern-Simons theory action functional. Kotov and Strobl have observed…

A new, formal, non-combinatorial approach to invariants of three-dimensional manifolds of Reshetikhin, Turaev and Witten in the framework of non-perturbative topological quantum Chern-Simons theory, corresponding to an arbitrary compact…

We study the existence of $S^1$-equivariant characteristic classes on certain natural infinite rank bundles over the loop space $LM$ of a manifold $M$. We discuss the different $S^1$-equivariant cohomology theories in the literature and…

We construct a Chern-Simons gauge theory for dg Lie and L-infinity algebras on any one-dimensional manifold and quantize this theory using the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism and Costello's renormalization techniques. Koszul duality and…

We formulate differential cohomology and Chern-Weil theory -- the theory of connections on fiber bundles and of gauge fields -- abstractly in the context of a certain class of higher toposes that we call "cohesive". Cocycles in this…

For a compact Lie group acting on a smooth manifold, we define the differential cohomology of a certain quotient stack involving principal bundles with connection. This produces differential equivariant cohomology groups that map to the…

We define a Chern--Simons invariant of connections on stably trivial vector bundles over smooth manifolds, taking values in $3$-forms modulo closed forms with integral cohomology class. We show an additivity property of this invariant for…

We define the notion of spectral network on manifolds of dimension $\le 3$. For a manifold $X$ equipped with a spectral network, we construct equivalences between Chern-Simons invariants of flat ${\mathrm {SL}}(2,{\mathbb C})$-bundles over…

Let $\mathbb{X}=[X_1\rightrightarrows X_0]$ be a Lie groupoid equipped with a connection, given by a smooth distribution $\mathcal{H} \subset T X_1$ transversal to the fibers of the source map. Under the assumption that the distribution…

We introduce a canonical Chern-Weil map for possibly non-commutative g-differential algebras with connection. Our main observation is that the generalized Chern-Weil map is an algebra homomorphism ``up to g-homotopy''. Hence, the induced…