Related papers: Higher Gauge Theory with String 2-Groups

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…

We develop semistrict higher gauge theory from first principles. In particular, we describe the differential Deligne cohomology underlying semistrict principal 2-bundles with connective structures. Principal 2-bundles are obtained in terms…

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…

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…

In this easy introduction to higher gauge theory, we describe parallel transport for particles and strings in terms of 2-connections on 2-bundles. Just as ordinary gauge theory involves a gauge group, this generalization involves a gauge…

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…

I summarize and discuss some recent results on formulating actions of six-dimensional superconformal field theories using the language of higher gauge theory. The latter guarantees mathematical consistency of our constructions and we review…

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…

In this paper we introduce principal 2-bundles and show how they are classified by non-abelian Cech cohomology. Moreover, we show that their gauge 2-groups can be described by 2-group-valued functors, much like in classical bundle theory.…

For a strict Lie 2-group, we develop a notion of Lie 2-algebra-valued differential forms on Lie groupoids, furnishing a differential graded-commutative Lie algebra equipped with an adjoint action of the Lie 2-group and a pullback operation…

The notion of global higher-form symmetries has received much attention, but leaves room for a more systematic mathematical formulation. In this article, we highlight the concept of higher automorphism bundles from the field of higher…

We investigate an interplay between some ideas in traditional gauge theory and certain concepts in fibered categories. We accomplish this by introducing a notion of a principal Lie 2-group bundle over a Lie groupoid and studying its…

M2-branes couple to a 3-form potential, which suggests that their description involves a non-abelian 2-gerbe or, equivalently, a principal 3-bundle. We show that current M2-brane models fit this expectation: they can be reformulated as…

We develop a description of higher gauge theory with higher groupoids as gauge structure from first principles. This approach captures ordinary gauge theories and gauged sigma models as well as their categorifications on a very general…

In the first part of this paper, we work out a perturbative Lagrangian formulation of semistrict higher gauge theory, that avoids the subtleties of the relationship between Lie 2-groups and algebras by relying exclusively on the structure…

We present an action for a six-dimensional superconformal field theory containing a non-abelian tensor multiplet. All of the ingredients of this action have been available in the literature. We bring these pieces together by choosing the…

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…

We provide a model of the String group as a central extension of finite-dimensional 2-groups in the bicategory of Lie groupoids, left-principal bibundles, and bibundle maps. This bicategory is a geometric incarnation of the bicategory of…

This is an invited survey article on higher gauge theory for the Encyclopedia of Mathematical Physics, 2nd edition. In particular, we provide a lightning introduction to higher structures and to the construction of the kinematical data of…

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…