arXiv research

Observable structures of a topological field theory of AKSZ type are analyzed. From a double (or multiple) complex structure of observable algebras, new topological invariants are constructed. Especially, Donaldson polynomial invariants and their generalizations are constructed from a topological field theory of AKSZ t…

This is an introductory review of topological field theories (TFTs) called AKSZ sigma models. The AKSZ construction is a mathematical formulation for the construction and analyses of a large class of TFTs, inspired by the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism of gauge theories. We begin by considering a simple two-dimensional t…

Extends AKSZ to poly-symplectic structures for more complex spaces.

Extended equivariant BV formalism to manifolds with boundaries.

Survey of global geometry for double field theory.

Extends AKSZ construction to supermanifolds with integral forms, deriving sigma model terms.

Develops a new approach to describe gauge theories with background fields using presymplectic structures.

A quantum field theory for Spin(7)-instantons derived from moduli spaces.

We reinterpret the generalised Lie derivative of M-theory $E_6$ generalised geometry as hamiltonian flow on a graded symplectic supermanifold. The hamiltonian acts as the nilpotent derivative of the tensor hierarchy of exceptional field theory. This construction is an M-theory analogue of the Courant algebroid and reve…

We study AKSZ-type BV constructions for the topological A- and B-models within a double field theory formulation that incorporates backgrounds with geometric and non-geometric fluxes. We relate them to a Courant sigma-model, on an open membrane, corresponding to a generalized complex structure, which reduces to the A- …

In the first part of this paper, we work out a perturbative Lagrangian formulation of semistrict higher gauge theory, that avoids the subtleties of the relationship between Lie 2-groups and algebras by relying exclusively on the structure semistrict Lie 2-algebra v and its automorphism 2-group Aut(v). Gauge transformat…

The well-known AKSZ construction (for Alexandrov--Kontsevich--Schwarz--Zaboronsky) gives an odd symplectic structure on a space of maps together with a functional $S$ that is automatically a solution for the classical master equation $(S,S)=0$. The input data required for the AKSZ construction consist of a volume eleme…

Chern-Weil theory provides for each invariant polynomial on a Lie algebra g a map from g-connections to differential cocycles whose volume holonomy is the corresponding Chern-Simons theory action functional. Kotov and Strobl have observed that this naturally generalizes from Lie algebras to dg-manifolds and dg-bundles …

Develops derived differential geometry theory.

We review the AKSZ construction as applied to the topological open membranes and Poisson sigma models. We describe a generalization to open topological p-branes and Nambu-Poisson sigma models.

We propose a new topological field theory on generalized complex geometry in two dimension using AKSZ formulation. Zucchini's model is $A$ model in the case that the generalized complex structuredepends on only a symplectic structure. Our new model is $B$ model in the case that the generalized complex structure depends…

These notes are based on a series of lectures given by the first author at the school of `Poisson 2010', held at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro. They contain an exposition of the theory of super- and graded manifolds, cohomological vector fields, graded symplectic structures, reduction and the AKSZ-formalism.

This paper puts the theory of quasi-Hamiltonian reduction in the framework of shifted symplectic structures developed by Pantev, Toën, Vaquié and Vezzosi. We compute the symplectic structures on mapping stacks and show how the AKSZ topological field theory defined by Calaque allows one to neatly package the constructio…

In this paper we describe multigraded generalizations of some constructions useful for mathematical understanding of gauge theories: we perform a near-at-hand generalization of the Aleksandrov--Kontsevich--Schwarz--Zaboronsky procedure, we also extend the formalism of $Q$-bundles introduced first by A. Kotov and T. Str…

Starting from a higher Courant bracket associated to exceptional generalized geometry, we provide a systematic derivation of all types of fluxes and their Bianchi identities for four-dimensional compactifications of M-theory. We show that these fluxes may be understood as generalized Wess-Zumino terms in certain topolo…

We study the Lagrangian antifield BRST formalism, formulated in terms of exterior horizontal forms on the infinite order jet space of graded fields for topological field theories associated to $Q$-bundles. In the case of a trivial Q-bundle with a flat fiber and arbitrary base, we prove that the BRST cohomology are isom…

Into a geometric setting, we import the physical interpretation of index theorems via semi-classical analysis in topological quantum field theory. We develop a direct relationship between Fedosov's deformation quantization of a symplectic manifold X and the BV quantization of a one-dimensional sigma model with target X…

Chern-Simons gauge theories in 3 dimensions and the Poisson Sigma Model (PSM) in 2 dimensions are examples of the same theory, if their field equations are interpreted as morphisms of Lie algebroids and their symmetries (on-shell) as homotopies of such morphisms. We point out that the (off-shell) gauge symmetries of th…

The Poisson--Weil sigma model, worked out by us recently, stems from gauging a Hamiltonian Lie group symmetry of the target space of the Poisson sigma model. Upon gauge fixing of the BV master action, it yields interesting topological field theories such as the 2--dimensional Donaldson-Witten topological gauge theory a…

In this contribution we review some of the interplay between sigma models in theoretical physics and novel geometrical structures such as Lie (n-)algebroids. The first part of the article contains the mathematical background, the definition of various algebroids as well as of Dirac structures, a joint generalization of…

Shifted symplectic Lie and $L_\infty$ algebroids model formal neighbourhoods of manifolds in shifted symplectic stacks, and serve as target spaces for twisted variants of classical AKSZ topological field theory. In this paper, we classify zero-, one- and two-shifted symplectic algebroids and their higher gauge symmetri…

We introduce and study the Wilson loops in a general 3D topological field theories (TFTs), and show that the expectation value of Wilson loops also gives knot invariants as in Chern-Simons theory. We study the TFTs within the Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) and Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-Zaboronsky (AKSZ) framework, and the…

We show how to carry out the gauging of the Poisson sigma model in an AKSZ inspired formulation by coupling it to the a generalization of the Weil model worked out in ref. arXiv:0706.1289 [hep-th]. We call the resulting gauged field theory, Poisson--Weil sigma model. We study the BV cohomology of the model and show its…

We propose a model of quantum gravity in arbitrary dimensions defined in terms of the BV quantization of a supersymmetric, infinite dimensional matrix model. This gives an (AKSZ-type) Chern-Simons theory with gauge algebra the space of observables of a quantum mechanical Hilbert space H. The model is motivated by previ…

In this paper, we show that associated to any coisotropic Cartan geometry there is a twisted Courant algebroid. This includes in particular parabolic geometries. Using this twisted Courant structure, we give some new results about the Cartan curvature and the Weyl structure of a parabolic geometry. As more direct appli…

A general form for the boundary coupling of a Lie algebroid Poisson sigma model is proposed. The approach involves using the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism in the AKSZ geometrical version, to write a BRST-invariant coupling for a representation up to homotopy of the target Lie algebroid or its subalgebroids. These consid…

We study deformations of the A-model in the presence of fluxes, by which we mean rank-three tensors with antisymmetrized upper/lower indices, using the AKSZ construction. Generically these are topological membrane models, and we show that the fluxes are related to deformations of the Courant bracket which generalize th…

The paper establishes a Lagrangian correspondence linking different geometric structures on complex varieties.

We revisit our earlier work on the AKSZ formulation of topological sigma model on generalized complex manifolds, or Hitchin model. We show that the target space geometry geometry implied by the BV master equations is Poisson--quasi--Nijenhuis geometry recently introduced and studied by Stiénon and Xu (in the untwisted …

The paper proves a category of dg manifolds with finite positive amplitude.

A Q-manifold is a graded manifold endowed with a vector field of degree one squaring to zero. We consider the notion of a Q-bundle, that is, a fiber bundle in the category of Q-manifolds. To each homotopy class of ``gauge fields'' (sections in the category of graded manifolds) and each cohomology class of a certain sub…

We observe that a system of irreducible, fiber-linear, first class constraints on T*M is equivalent to the definition of a foliation Lie algebroid over M. The BFV formulation of the constrained system is given by the Hamiltonian lift of the Vaintrob description (E[1],Q) of the Lie algebroid to its cotangent bundle T*E[…

The paper connects function theory, dynamics, and ergodic theory via Thurston's theory.

Survey of Floer theories and their connections.

Lectures on topological field theories and differential cohomology.

The paper defines strong emergence in field theories and proves it exists between certain theories.

This is the first paper in a series introducing a generalized Fredholm theory in a new class of smooth spaces called polyfolds. The theory will be illustrated in upcoming papers by applications to Floer Theory, Gromov-Witten Theory and Symplectic Field Theory.

Unified Higgs bundle vacua from M-theory on Spin(7) spaces.

Researchers find new $G_2$-conifolds in $M$-theory with potential field theory duals.

We survey three different ways in which K-theory in all its forms enters quantum field theory. In Part 1 we give a general argument which relates topological field theory in codimension two with twisted K-theory, and we illustrate with some finite models. Part 2 is a review of pfaffians of Dirac operators, anomalies, a…

New theory captures framing anomaly in gauge theory.

Distributivity in algebraic structures appeared in many contexts such as in quasigroup theory, semigroup theory and algebraic knot theory. In this paper we give a survey of distributivity in quasigroup theory and in quandle theory.

Survey on algebraic K- and L-theory conjecture.