English

Explicit Non-Abelian Gerbes with Connections

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-01-21 v4 Mathematical Physics Differential Geometry math.MP

Abstract

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 fake-flat connections and employ adjusted connections. This is an important generalisation that is needed for physical applications especially in the context of supergravity. We give a number of explicit examples; in particular, we lift the spin structure on S4S^4, corresponding to an instanton-anti-instanton pair, to a string structure, a 2-group bundle with connection. We also outline how categorified forms of Bogomolny monopoles known as self-dual strings can be obtained via a Penrose-Ward transform of string bundles over twistor space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2203.00092,
  title  = {Explicit Non-Abelian Gerbes with Connections},
  author = {Dominik Rist and Christian Saemann and Martin Wolf},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.00092},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

v4: 83 pages, presentation significantly improved, results added, published version

R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:57:03.038Z