English

Balanced Topological Field Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-30 v2

Abstract

We describe a class of topological field theories called ``balanced topological field theories.'' These theories are associated to moduli problems with vanishing virtual dimension and calculate the Euler character of various moduli spaces. We show that these theories are closely related to the geometry and equivariant cohomology of ``iterated superspaces'' that carry two differentials. We find the most general action for these theories, which turns out to define Morse theory on field space. We illustrate the constructions with numerous examples. Finally, we relate these theories to topological sigma-models twisted using an isometry of the target space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9608169,
  title  = {Balanced Topological Field Theories},
  author = {R. Dijkgraaf and G. Moore},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9608169},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

40 pages, harvmac, references added, to appear in Commun. Math. Phys

R2 v1 2026-07-22T16:01:11.531Z