arXiv research

We develop the theory of simplicial extensions for bundle gerbes and their characteristic classes with a view towards studying descent problems and equivariance for bundle gerbes. Equivariant bundle gerbes are important in the study of orbifold sigma models. We consider in detail two examples: the basic bundle gerbe on…

Introduces Weyl bundle gerbe and shows it's not D-stably isomorphic.

An equivariant bundle gerbe à la Meinrenken over a $G$-manifold $M$ is known to be a special type of $S^1$-gerbe over the differentiable stack $[M/G]$. We prove that the natural morphism relating the Cartan and simplicial models of equivariant cohomology in degree 3 maps the Dixmier-Douady class of an equivariant bundl…

From a certain strongly equivariant bundle gerbe with connection and curving over a smooth manifold on which a Lie group acts, we construct under some conditions a bundle gerbe with connection and curving over the quotient space. In general, the construction requires a choice, and we can consequently obtain distinct st…

Let $G$ be a compact, simply connected simple Lie group. We give a construction of an equivariant gerbe with connection on $G$, with equivariant 3-curvature representing a generator of $H^3_G(G,\Z)$. Technical tools developed in this context include a gluing construction for gerbes and a theory of equivariant bundle ge…

Let G be a compact Lie group acting on a smooth manifold M. In this paper, we consider Meinrenken's G-equivariant bundle gerbe connections on M as objects in a 2-groupoid. We prove this 2-category is equivalent to the 2-groupoid of gerbe connections on the differential quotient stack associated to M, and isomorphism cl…

New smooth 2-group extensions from bundle gerbes on manifolds.

This paper computes the obstruction to the existence of equivariant extensions of basic gerbes over non-simply connected compact simple Lie groups. By modifying a (finite dimensional) construction of Gawȩdzki-Reis [J. Geom. Phys. 50(1):28-55, 2004], we exhibit basic equivariant bundle gerbes over non-simply connected c…

It has been argued by Witten and others that in the presence of a nontrivial B-field, D-brane charges in type IIB string theories are measured by twisted K-theory. In joint work with Bouwknegt, Carey and Murray it was proved that twisted K-theory is canonically isomorphic to bundle gerbe K-theory, whose elements are or…

Given a bundle gerbe on a compact smooth manifold or, more generally, on a compact étale Lie groupoid $M$, we show that the corresponding category of gerbe modules, if it is non-trivial, is equivalent to the category of finitely generated projective modules over an Azumaya algebra on $M$. This result can be seen as an …

On the basis of Brylinski's work, we introduce a notion of equivariant smooth Deligne cohomology group, which is a generalization of both the ordinary smooth Deligne cohomology and the ordinary equivariant cohomology. Using the cohomology group, we classify equivariant circle bundles with connection, and equivariant ge…

This paper exhibits equivalences of 2-stacks between certain models of $\mathbb{S}^1$-gerbes and differential 3-cocycles. We focus primarily on the model of Dixmier-Douady bundles, and provide an equivalence between the 2-stack of Dixmier-Douady bundles and the 2-stack of differential 3-cocycles of height 1, where the …

This paper generalizes Bismut's equivariant Chern character to the setting of abelian gerbes. In particular, associated to an abelian gerbe with connection, an equivariantly closed differential form is constructed on the space of maps of a torus into the manifold. These constructions are made explicit using a new local…

We show that the category of abelian gerbes over a smooth manifold is equivalent to a certain category of principal bundles over the free loop space. These principal bundles are equipped with fusion products and are equivariant with respect to thin homotopies between loops. The equivalence is established by a functor c…

By means of cohomology groups, we study relationships between equivariant gerbes with connection over a manifold with a Lie group action and gerbes with connection over the quotient space.

We study (pre-)sheaves in bicategories on geometric categories: smooth manifolds, manifolds with a Lie group action and Lie groupoids. We present three main results: we describe equivariant descent, we generalize the plus construction to our setting and show that the plus construction yields a 2-stackification for 2-pr…

In this paper we introduce exotic twisted $\mathbb T$-equivariant K-theory of loop space $LZ$ depending on the (typically non-flat) holonomy line bundle ${\mathcal L}^B$ on $LZ$ induced from a gerbe with connection $B$ on $Z$. We also define exotic twisted $\mathbb T$-equivariant Chern character that maps the exotic tw…

In a previous paper we outlined how discrete torsion can be understood geometrically as an analogue of orbifold U(1) Wilson lines. In this paper we shall prove the remaining details. More precisely, in this paper we describe gerbes in terms of objects known as stacks (essentially, sheaves of categories), and develop mu…

This paper is our first step in establishing a de Rham model for equivariant twisted $K$-theory using machinery from noncommutative geometry. Let $G$ be a compact Lie group, $M$ a compact manifold on which $G$ acts smoothly. For any $α\in H^3_G (M, {\mathbb Z})$ we introduce a notion of localized equivariant twisted co…

Just as $\Cstar$ principal bundles provide a geometric realisation of two-dimensional integral cohomology; gerbes or sheaves of groupoids, provide a geometric realisation of three dimensional integral cohomology through their Dixmier-Douady class. I consider an alternative, related, geometric realisation of three dimen…

Equivariant T-duality connects bundles with twists.

This masters thesis reviews bundle gerbe theory and the well-known basic bundle gerbe over SU(n). We introduce the cup product bundle gerbe, and show it is stably isomorphic to the pullback of the basic bundle gerbe by the Weyl map. This result enriches our understanding of the basic bundle gerbe, which has numerous ap…

Decomposes bundle gerbes on supermanifolds into simpler components.

Recently twisted K-theory has received much attention due to its applications in string theory and the announced result by Freed, Hopkins and Telemann relating the twisted equivariant K-theory of a compact Lie group to its Verlinde algebra. Rather than considering gerbes as separate objects, in twisted K-theory one con…

A new gauge principle for string models emerges from groupoid symmetries.

We define 2-crossed module bundle 2-gerbes related to general Lie 2-crossed modules and discuss their properties. A 2-crossed module bundle 2-gerbe over a manifold is defined in terms of a so called 2-crossed module bundle gerbe, which is a crossed module bundle gerbe equipped with an extra sructure. It is shown that s…

Survey of bundle gerbes in geometry, field theory, and quantization.

We consider Real bundle gerbes on manifolds equipped with an involution and prove that they are classified by their Real Dixmier-Douady class in Grothendieck's equivariant sheaf cohomology. We show that the Grothendieck group of Real bundle gerbe modules is isomorphic to twisted KR-theory for a torsion Real Dixmier-Dou…

This thesis reviews the theory of bundle gerbes and then examines the higher dimensional notion of a bundle 2-gerbe. The notion of a bundle 2-gerbe connection and 2-curving are introduced and it is shown that there is a class in $H^{4}(M;\Z)$ associated to any bundle 2-gerbe.

We make the category BGrb_M of bundle gerbes on a manifold M into a 2-category by providing 2-cells in the form of transformations of bundle gerbe morphisms. This description of BGrb_M as a 2-category is used to define the notion of a bundle 2-gerbe. To every bundle 2-gerbe on M is associated a class in H^4(M;Z). We de…

The paper generalizes bundle gerbes over groupoids and their correspondence with PB groupoids.

We consider the notion of stable isomorphism of bundle gerbes. It has the consequence that the stable isomorphism classes of bundle gerbes over a manifold M are in bijective correspondence with H^3(M, Z). Stable isomorphism sheds light on the local theory of bundle gerbes and enables us to develop a classifying theory …

We present a review of bundle gerbes, emphasizing their relations to Lie groups. Indeed, compact Lie groups do not only carry the structure of a Riemannian manifold, but also canonical families of bundle gerbes. We recall the construction of these bundle gerbes and their relation to loop groups. We discuss several alge…

Constructs small bundle gerbes and proves index theorems for manifolds.

We present a construction of a 2-Hilbert space of sections of a bundle gerbe, a suitable candidate for a prequantum 2-Hilbert space in higher geometric quantisation. We introduce a direct sum on the morphism categories in the 2-category of bundle gerbes and show that these categories are cartesian monoidal and abelian.…

In this paper, we construct the index bundle gerbe of a family of self-adjoint Dirac-type operators, refining a construction of Segal. In a special case, we construct a geometric bundle gerbe called the caloron bundle gerbe, which comes with a natural connection and curving, and show that it is isomorphic to the analyt…

Multiplicative bundle gerbes are gerbes over a Lie group which are compatible with the group structure. In this article connections on such bundle gerbes are introduced and studied. It is shown that multiplicative bundle gerbes with connection furnish geometrical constructions of the following objects: smooth central e…

We construct a gerbe over a complex reductive Lie group G attached to an invariant bilinear form on a maximal diagonalizable subalgebra which is Weyl group invariant and satisfies a parity condition. By restriction to a maximal compact subgroup K, one then gets a gerbe over K. For a simply-connected group, the parity c…

Study fractional structures on bundle gerbe modules using rational homotopy theory.

Elliptic Chern characters and Atiyah-Witten formula generalized to double loop spaces.

New result on finite gerbes simplifies classification of certain bundles.

In gauge theory, the Faddeev-Mickelsson-Shatashvili anomaly arises as a prolongation problem for the action of the gauge group on a bundle of projective Fock spaces. In this paper, we study this anomaly from the point of view of bundle gerbes and give several equivalent descriptions of the obstruction. These include li…

New theory connects non-abelian bundle gerbes to abelian ones.

Proves well-posedness of gradient solitons on bundle gerbe.

We discuss nonabelian bundle gerbes and their differential geometry using simplicial methods. Associated to any crossed module there is a simplicial group NC, the nerve of the 1-category defined by the crossed module and its geometric realization |NC|. Equivalence classes of principal bundles with structure group |NC| …

For each holomorphic vector bundle we construct a holomorphic bundle 2-gerbe that geometrically represents its second Beilinson-Chern class. Applied to the cotangent bundle, this may be regarded as a higher analogue of the canonical line bundle in complex geometry. Moreover, we exhibit the precise relationship between …

Usually bundle gerbes are considered as objects of a 2-groupoid, whose 1-morphisms, called stable isomorphisms, are all invertible. I introduce new 1-morphisms which include stable isomorphisms, trivializations and bundle gerbe modules. They fit into the structure of a 2-category of bundle gerbes, and lead to natural d…

Rigorous model for 2-gerbes simplifies calculations in physics.