Related papers: On the Mathai-Quillen Formalism of Topological Sig…
A simple field theoretical approach to Mathai-Quillen topological field theories of maps $X: M_I \to M_T$ from an internal space to a target space is presented. As an example of applications of our formalism we compute by applying our…
These lecture notes give an introductory account of an approach to cohomological field theory due to Atiyah and Jeffrey which is based on the construction of Gaussian shaped Thom forms by Mathai and Quillen. Topics covered are: an…
We begin with the construction of Mathai-Quillen's Thom form. We also study the case with group actions, with a review of equivariant cohomology and then Mathai-Quillen's construction in this setting. Next, we show that much of the above…
We construct sheaf-cohomological analogues of Mathai-Quillen forms, that is, holomorphic bundle-valued differential forms whose cohomology classes are independent of certain deformations, and which are believed to possess Thom-like…
A mathematical framework of cohomological field theories (CohFTs) is formulated in the language of bigraded manifolds. Algebraic properties of operators in CohFTs are studied. Methods of constructing CohFTs, with or without gauge…
We present a detailed description of the three inequivalent twists of N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories. The resulting topological quantum field theories are reobtained in the framework of the Mathai-Quillen formalism and the corresponding…
It is suggested that topological membranes play a fundamental role in the recently proposed topological M-theory. We formulate a topological theory of membranes wrapping associative three-cycles in a seven-dimensional target space with G_2…
We identify and examine a generalization of topological sigma models suitable for coupling to topological open strings. The targets are Kahler manifolds with a real structure, i.e. with an involution acting as a complex conjugation,…
The Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalisms offer two perspectives on quantum field theory. This paper sets up a framework to compare these approaches for the supersymmetric sigma model. The goal is to use techniques from physics to construct…
We consider the compactification M(atrix) theory on a Riemann surface Sigma of genus g>1. A natural generalization of the case of the torus leads to construct a projective unitary representation of pi_1(\Sigma), realized on the Hilbert…
In this paper, we study the perturbative aspects of a twisted version of the two-dimensional $(0,2)$ heterotic sigma model on a holomorphic gauge bundle $\mathcal E$ over a complex, hermitian manifold $X$. We show that the model can be…
The self-duality equations on a Riemann surface arise as dimensional reduction of self-dual Yang-Mills equations. Hitchin had showed that the moduli space ${\mathcal M}$ of solutions of the self-duality equations on a compact Riemann…
It is well-known that topological sigma-models in 2 dimensions constitute a path-integral approach to the study of holomorphic maps from a Riemann surface S to an almost complex manifold K, the most interesting case being that where K is a…
We construct and study a closed, two-dimensional, quasi-topological (0,2) gauged sigma model with target space a smooth G-manifold, where G is any compact and connected Lie group. When the target space is a flag manifold of simple G, and…
In Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism a classical mechanical system is specified by means of a solution to the {\sl classical master equation}. Geometrically such a solution can be considered as a $QP$-manifold, i.e. a super\m equipped with an…
With the use of mathematical techniques of tropical geometry, it was shown by Mikhalkin some twenty years ago that certain Gromov-Witten invariants associated with topological quantum field theories of pseudoholomorphic maps can be computed…
The configuration space of a non-linear sigma model is the space of maps from one manifold to another. This paper reviews the authors' work on non-linear sigma models with target a homogeneous space. It begins with a description of the…
A quantization over a manifold can be seen as a way to construct a differential operator with prescribed principal symbol. The quantization map is moreover required to be a linear bijection. It is known that there is in general no natural…
We describe a topological field theory that studies the moduli space of solutions of the symplectic vortex equations. It contains as special cases the topological sigma-model and topological Yang-Mills over Kahler surfaces. The correlation…
We present an equivariant extension of the Thom form with respect to a vector field action, in the framework of the Mathai-Quillen formalism. The associated Topological Quantum Field Theories correspond to twisted $N=2$ supersymmetric…