Related papers: Higher categories of bordisms with geometric struc…
In this chapter we survey some particular topics in category theory in a somewhat unconventional manner. Our main focus will be on monoidal categories, mostly symmetric ones, for which we propose a physical interpretation. These are…
We produce new cohomology for non-uniform arithmetic lattices $\Gamma<SO(p,q)$ using a technique of Millson--Raghunathan. From this, we obtain new characteristic classes of manifold bundles with fiber a closed $4k$-dimensional manifold $M$…
We study minimal surfaces in generic sub-Riemannian manifolds with sub-Riemannian structures of co-rank one. These surfaces can be defined as the critical points of the so-called {\it horizontal} area functional associated to the canonical…
We define new Riemannian structures on 7-manifolds by a differential form of mixed degree which is the critical point of a (possibly constrained) variational problem over a fixed cohomology class. The unconstrained critical points…
I discuss the general formalism of two-dimensional topological field theories defined on open-closed oriented Riemann surfaces, starting from an extension of Segal's geometric axioms. Exploiting the topological sewing constraints allows for…
We construct a rational homotopy-theoretic model for a classifying space of locally conformally symplectic structures on four-manifolds, and use it to definition a cobordism category of three-manifolds `anchored' by principal $\Omega^2 S^2$…
In this paper, we characterize the second bounded characteristic classes of foliated bundles in terms of the non-descendible quasi-morphisms on the universal covering of the structure group. As its application, we study the boundedness of…
We show that once-extended anomalous 3-dimensional topological quantum field theories valued in the 2-category of k-linear categories are in canonical bijection with modular tensor categories equipped with a square root of the global…
Four lectures on invertible field theories at the Park City Mathematics Institute 2019. Cobordism categories are introduced both as plain categories and topologically enriched. We then discuss localization of categories and its relationship…
We compute the classifying space of the surface category $h\mathrm{Bord}_2$ whose objects are closed oriented $1$-manifolds and whose morphisms are diffeomorphism classes of oriented surface bordisms, and show that it is rationally…
We develop a ready-to-use comprehensive theory for (super) 2-vector bundles over smooth manifolds. It is based on the bicategory of (super) algebras, bimodules, and intertwiners as a model for 2-vector spaces. We discuss symmetric monoidal…
We introduce a monoidal category whose morphisms are finite partial orders, with chosen minimal and maximal elements as source and target respectively. After recalling the notion of presentation of a monoidal category by the means of…
A new scheme is proposed for dealing with the problem of singularities in General Relativity. The proposal is, however, much more general than this. It can be used to deal with manifolds of any dimension which are endowed with nothing more…
We discover a fundamental exterior differential system of Riemannian geometry; indeed, an intrinsic and invariant global system of differential forms of degree $n$ associated to any given oriented Riemannian manifold $M$ of dimension $n+1$.…
The infinitesimal counterpart of a Lie groupoid is its Lie algebroid. As a vector bundle, it is given by the source vertical tangent bundle restricted to the identity bisection. Its sections can be identified with the invariant vector…
Co-Euler structures were studied by Burghelea and Haller on closed manifolds as dual objects to Euler structures. We extend the notion of co-Euler structures to the situation of compact manifolds with boundary. As an application, by…
The aim of this paper is to study the structure of the higher-dimensional Teichm\"uller and Riemann moduli spaces, viewed as stacks over the category of complex manifolds. We first show that the space of complex operators on a smooth…
Let $M$ be complete nonpositively curved Riemannian manifold of finite volume whose fundamental group $\Gamma$ does not contain a finite index subgroup which is a product of infinite groups. We show that the universal cover $\tilde M$ is a…
In this paper we provide the complete classification of $\mathbb{P}^1$-bundles over smooth projective rational surfaces whose neutral component of the automorphism group is maximal. Our results hold over any algebraically closed field of…
We study several notions of dimension for (pre-)triangulated categories naturally arising from topology and symplectic geometry. We prove new bounds on these dimensions and raise several questions for further investigation. For instance, we…