Related papers: Differential Cohomology: Categories, Characteristi…
We give an overview of differential cohomology from the point of view of algebraic topology. This includes a survey of several different definitions of differential cohomology groups, a discussion of differential characteristic classes, an…
These course note first provide an introduction to secondary characteristic classes and differential cohomology. They continue with a presentation of a stable homotopy theoretic approach to the theory of differential extensions of…
We show that every sheaf on the site of smooth manifolds with values in a stable (infinity,1)-category (like spectra or chain complexes) gives rise to a differential cohomology diagram and a homotopy formula, which are common features of…
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…
By adapting the Cheeger-Simons approach to differential cohomology, we establish a notion of differential cohomology with compact support. We show that it is functorial with respect to open embeddings and that it fits into a natural diagram…
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…
Many important theorems in differential topology relate properties of manifolds to properties of their underlying homotopy types -- defined e.g. using the total singular complex or the \v{C}ech nerve of a good open cover. Upon embedding the…
We study sheaves of differential forms and their cohomology in the h-topology. This allows to extend standard results from the case of smooth varieties to the general case. As a first application we explain the case of singularities arising…
Using the concept of a cohesive module defined by Block, we use the theory of superconnections in the sense of Quillen to construct natural superconnections on Hermitian cohesive modules. By the Chern-Weil construction, we obtain…
A survey of some results and open questions related to the following algebraic invariants of compact complex manifolds, that can be obtained from differential forms: cohomology groups, Chern classes, rational homotopy groups, and higher…
Cheeger-Simons differential characters and differential $K$-theory are refinements of ordinary cohomology theory and topological $K$-theory respectively, and they are examples of differential cohomology. Each of these differential…
We develop sheaf theory in the context of difference algebraic geometry. We introduce categories of difference sheaves and develop the appropriate cohomology theories. As specializations, we get difference Galois cohomology, difference…
This is a chapter in an upcoming book on aperiodic order. We go over different versions of tiling cohomology (\v Cech, pattern-equivariant, PV, quotient) with emphasis on the inverse limit constructions used to compute these cohomologies.…
We study Cheeger-Simons differential characters and provide geometric descriptions of the ring structure and of the fiber integration map. The uniqueness of differential cohomology (up to unique natural transformation) is proved by deriving…
The construction of characteristic classes via the curvature form of a connection is one motivation for the refinement of integral cohomology by de Rham cocycles -- known as differential cohomology. We will discuss the analog in the case of…
This paper is devoted to the horizontal (``characteristic'') cohomology of systems of differential equations. Recent results on computing the horizontal cohomology via the compatibility complex are generalized. New results on the Vinogradov…
The primary interest of this paper is to discuss the role of twisting cochains in the theory of characteristic classes. We begin with the homological description of monodromy map, associated with a connection on a trivial bundle over a…
In this note we clarify the relevance of ``connections up to homotopy'' to the theory of characteristic classes. We have already remarked \cite{Crai} that such connections up to homotopy can be used to compute the classical Chern…
Let $\pi\colon P\to M$ be a principal bundle and $p$ an invariant polynomial of degree r on the Lie algebra of the structure group. The theory of Chern-Simons differential characters is exploited to define an homology map $\chi^{k} :…
In this paper we construct various non-trivial and non-tautological cohomology classes on compactified and uncompactified strata of curves with a differential, by using the geometry of the boundary stratification of the moduli space of…