Related papers: Chern-Weil theory for certain infinite-dimensional…
Quantum knot invariants (like colored HOMFLY-PT or Kauffman polynomials) are a distinguished class of non-perturbative topological invariants. Any known way to construct them (via Chern-Simons theory or quantum R-matrix) starts with a…
A homology and cohomology theory for topological quandles are introduced. The relation between these (co)homology groups and quandle (co)homology groups are studied. The 1 - topological quandle cocycles are used to compute state sum…
We examine several classes of manifolds which have the same cohomology ring as an Eschenburg space (a family of biquotients which is a main source of manifolds with positive curvature). One family are the 3-sphere bundles over CP^2. Another…
A Chern-Simons theory in 11 dimensions, which is a piece of the 11 dimensional supergravity action, is considered as a quantum field theory in its own right. We conjecture that it defines a non-perturbative phase of M theory in which the…
In a previous paper [\AS], we used superspace techniques to prove that perturbation theory (around a classical solution with no zero modes) for Chern--Simons quantum field theory on a general $3$-manifold $M$ is finite. We conjectured (and…
We show how the Turaev--Viro invariant can be understood within the framework of Chern--Simons theory with gauge group SU(2). We also describe a new invariant for certain class of graphs by interpreting the triangulation of a manifold as a…
We give Chern-Weil definitions of the Maslov indices of bundle pairs over a Riemann surface \Sigma with boundary, which consists of symplectic vector bundle on \Sigma and a Lagrangian subbundle on \partial{\Sigma} as well as its…
The notion of a higher bundle gerbe is introduced to give a geometric realization of the higher degree integral cohomology of certain manifolds. We consider examples using the infinite dimensional spaces arising in gauge theories.
We describe the second integral cohomology group of a surface bundle as the group of Chern classes of fiberwise holomorphic complex line bundles and use this to obtain information on this group.
We study three-dimensional gauge theories based on orthogonal groups. Depending on the global form of the group these theories admit discrete $\theta$-parameters, which control the weights in the sum over topologically distinct gauge…
We prove the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem using sigma models whose source supermanifolds have super dimension 0|2. Along the way we develop machinery for understanding manifold invariants encoded by families of 0|n-dimensional Euclidean field…
Level-rank duality relates the observables of two different Chern-Simons theories in which the roles of the Chern-Simons level and the rank of the gauge group are exchanged. In this note, we explore the consequences of this duality in the…
We establish vanishing results for the first cohomology group of nilpotent groups and Lie rings when the submodule of invariants is trivial. Our results are obtained within a model-theoretic setting, namely for structures that are definable…
A new infinite class of Chern-Simons theories is presented using brane tilings. The new class reproduces all known cases so far and introduces many new models that are dual to M2 brane theories which probe a toric non-compact CY 4-fold. The…
We compute the cohomology of the right generalised projective Stiefel manifolds and use it to find bounds on the rank of the complementary bundle for certain vector bundles. Further the cohomology computations are also used to find bounds…
In this short review article we sketch some developments which should ultimately lead to the analogy of the Chern-Weil homomorphism for principal bundles in the realm of non-commutative differential geometry. Principal bundles there should…
The recently proposed physical projector approach to the quantisation of gauge invariant systems is applied to the U(1) Chern-Simons theory in 2+1 dimensions as one of the simplest examples of a topological quantum field theory. The…
The superpotential in four-dimensional heterotic effective theories contains terms arising from holomorphic Chern-Simons invariants associated to the gauge and tangent bundles of the compactification geometry. These effects are crucial for…
Chern-Simons theory in the 1/N expansion has been conjectured to be equivalent to a topological string theory. This conjecture predicts a remarkable relationship between knot invariants and Gromov-Witten theory. We review some basic aspects…
We use differential cohomology to systematically construct a large class of topological actions in physics, including Chern-Simons terms, Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten terms, and theta terms (continuous or discrete). We introduce a notion of…