arXiv research

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…

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.

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…

We introduce the notion of a general cup product bundle gerbe and use it to define the Weyl bundle gerbe on T x SU(n)/T. The Weyl map from T x SU(n)/T to SU(n) is then used to show that the pullback of the basic bundle gerbe on SU(n) defined by the second two authors is stably isomorphic to the Weyl bundle gerbe as SU(…

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

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…

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…

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…

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.

Rigorous model for 2-gerbes simplifies calculations in physics.

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 …

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…

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

We study geometry on real gerbes in the spirit of Cheeger-Simons theory. The concepts of adaptations and holonomy forms are introduced for flat connections on real gerbes. Their relations to complex gerbes with connections are presented, as well as results in loop and map spaces.

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…

Constructs small bundle gerbes and proves index theorems for manifolds.

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…

We introduce and study the notion of a biholomorphic gerbe with connection. The biholomorphic gerbe provides a natural geometrical framework for generalized Kahler geometry in a manner analogous to the way a holomorphic line bundle is related to Kahler geometry. The relation between the gerbe and the generalized Kahler…

In this paper we study n-composition series of affine manifolds. One composition series are classified using gerbe theory. It is natural to think that n-composition series must be classified using n-gerbe theory. In the last section of this, we propose a notion of abelian n-gerbe theory

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.…

We introduce an axiomatic framework for the parallel transport of connections on gerbes. It incorporates parallel transport along curves and along surfaces, and is formulated in terms of gluing axioms and smoothness conditions. The smoothness conditions are imposed with respect to a strict Lie 2-group, which plays the …

Gerbes encode spectral gaps in topological insulators.

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…

We review a systematic construction of the 2-stack of bundle gerbes via descent, and extend it to non-abelian gerbes. We review the role of non-abelian gerbes in orientifold sigma models, for the anomaly cancellation in supersymmetric sigma models, and in a geometric description of so-called non-geometric T-duals.

Hermitian bundle gerbes with connection are geometric objects for which a notion of surface holonomy can be defined for closed oriented surfaces. We systematically introduce bundle gerbes by closing the pre-stack of trivial bundle gerbes under descent. Inspired by structures arising in a representation theoretic approa…

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…

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

New result on finite gerbes simplifies classification of certain bundles.

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

An introduction to the theory of bundle gerbes and their relationship to Hitchin-Chatterjee gerbes is presented. Topics covered are connective structures, triviality and stable isomorphism as well as examples and applications.

This paper introduces the notion of ``relative gerbes'' for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are further classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree three.

Proves well-posedness of gradient solitons on bundle gerbe.

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…

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…

Symmetries of bundle gerbes modeled using multiplicative vector fields.

The goal of this paper is to apply the universal gerbe of \cite{CMi1} and \cite{CMi2} to give an alternative, simple and more unified view of the relationship between index theory and gerbes. We discuss determinant bundle gerbes \cite{CMMi1} and the index gerbe of \cite{L} for the case of families of Dirac operators on…

This thesis introduces the notion of "relative gerbes" for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree three. Furthermore, by using the concept of relative gerbes, the pre-quantization of Lie…

We study non-abelian differentiable gerbes over stacks using the theory of Lie groupoids. More precisely, we develop the theory of connections on Lie groupoid $G$-extensions, which we call "connections on gerbes", and study the induced connections on various associated bundles. We also prove analogues of the Bianchi id…

We recall and partially improve four versions of smooth, non-abelian gerbes: Cech cocycles, classifying maps, bundle gerbes, and principal 2-bundles. We prove that all these four versions are equivalent, and so establish new relations between interesting recent developments. Prominent partial results we prove are a bij…

For a gerbe $\Y$ over a smooth proper Deligne-Mumford stack $\B$ banded by a finite group $G$, we prove a structure result on the Gromov-Witten theory of $\Y$, expressing Gromov-Witten invariants of $\Y$ in terms of Gromov-Witten invariants of $\B$ twisted by various flat $U(1)$-gerbes on $\B$. This is interpreted as a…

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 …

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…

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…

We develop the theory of Chern-Simons bundle 2-gerbes and multiplicative bundle gerbes associated to any principal $G$-bundle with connection and a class in $H^4(BG, \ZZ)$ for a compact semi-simple Lie group $G$. The Chern-Simons bundle 2-gerbe realises differential geometrically the Cheeger-Simons invariant. We apply …

Let (F,u)\to P\to N be a symplectic fibration in math.SG/0503268 McDuff has defined a subgroup Ham^s(F,u) of the group of symplectic automorphisms of(F,u). She has shown that the cohomology class [u] of u can be extended to P if and only if the symplectic fibration has an Ham^s reduction. To show this result, she const…