arXiv research

Novel $A_{\infty}$-categories derived from gauge theories for manifold homologies.

Second part of a series on higher coverings of racks and quandles.

Develops parametrised Poincaré duality for equivariant fixed points.

We summarize our axioms for higher categories, and describe the blob complex. Fixing an n-category C, the blob complex associates a chain complex B_*(W;C)$ to any n-manifold W. The 0-th homology of this chain complex recovers the usual topological quantum field theory invariants of W. The higher homology groups should …

We generalize Cohen & Jones & Segal's flow category whose objects are the critical points of a Morse function and whose morphisms are the Morse moduli spaces between the critical points to an n-category. The n-category construction involves repeatedly doing Morse theory on Morse moduli spaces for which we have to const…

In this technical paper, we present a new formulation of higher parallel transport in strict higher gauge theory required for the rigorous construction of Wilson lines and surfaces. Our approach is based on an original notion of Lie crossed module cocycle and cocycle 1- and 2-gauge transformation with a non standard do…

The paper bridges diffeological bundle theory with higher topos theory.

We give a complete and explicit description of the kinematical data of higher gauge theory on principal 2-bundles with the string 2-group model of Schommer-Pries as structure 2-group. We start with a self-contained review of the weak 2-category Bibun of Lie groupoids, bibundles and bibundle morphisms. We then construct…

In this paper we analyze supergeometric locally covariant quantum field theories. We develop suitable categories SLoc of super-Cartan supermanifolds, which generalize Lorentz manifolds in ordinary quantum field theory, and show that, starting from a few representation theoretic and geometric data, one can construct a f…

We construct what we call a Kirby category, a monoidal category whose morphisms are smooth 4-manifolds, projecting down to another monoidal category whose morphisms are orientable 3-manifolds, the projection being induced by the boundary map on manifolds. We construct a higher categorical generalization of such concept…

Study homotopy sheaves on categories and their presheaves, proving descent properties.

Simplified 3D Dijkgraaf-Witten theory with defects explained geometrically.

Develops higher representation theory for odd Khovanov homology and rewriting theory.

In previous work we showed that the contact category algebra of a quadrangulated surface is isomorphic to the homology of a strand algebra from bordered sutured Floer theory. Being isomorphic to the homology of a differential graded algebra, this contact category algebra has an A-infinity structure, allowing us to comb…

5D gauge theories are dual to 3D and 2D models via Floer homologies.

We develop a description of higher gauge theory with higher groupoids as gauge structure from first principles. This approach captures ordinary gauge theories and gauged sigma models as well as their categorifications on a very general class of (higher) spaces comprising presentable differentiable stacks, as e.g. orbif…

We construct a state-sum type invariant of smooth closed oriented $4$-manifolds out of a $G$-crossed braided spherical fusion category ($G$-BSFC) for $G$ a finite group. The construction can be extended to obtain a $(3+1)$-dimensional topological quantum field theory (TQFT). The invariant of $4$-manifolds generalizes s…

This paper is motivated by recent developments of higher gauge theory. Different from its style of using higher category theory, we try to describe the concept of higher parallel transport within setting of classical principal bundle theory. From this perspective, we obtain a global geometric proof on a generalized 3-d…

Defines odd Khovanov homology via categorification of q-Schur algebra.

We study the connected components of the space of higher spin bundles on hyperbolic Klein surfaces. A Klein surface is a generalisation of a Riemann surface to the case of non-orientable surfaces or surfaces with boundary. The category of Klein surfaces is isomorphic to the category of real algebraic curves. An m-spin …

Just as gauge theory describes the parallel transport of point particles using connections on bundles, higher gauge theory describes the parallel transport of 1-dimensional objects (e.g. strings) using 2-connections on 2-bundles. A 2-bundle is a categorified version of a bundle: that is, one where the fiber is not a ma…

We investigate constructions of higher arity self-distributive operations, and give relations between cohomology groups corresponding to operations of different arities. For this purpose we introduce the notion of mutually distributive $n$-ary operations generalizing those for the binary case, and define a cohomology t…

We describe an $A_\infty$-quasi-equivalence of dg-categories between the first authors' $\mathcal{P}_{\mathcal{A}}$ ---the category of category of prefect $A^0$-modules with flat $\Z$-connection, corresponding to the de Rham dga $\mathcal{A}$ of a compact manifold $M$--- and the dg-category of \emph{infinity-local syst…

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 study 2-representations of 2-quantum groups (in the sense of Rouquier and Khovanov-Lauda) categorifying tensor products of irreducible representations. Our aim is to construct knot homologies categorifying Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of knots for arbitrary representations, which will be done in a fo…

We categorify the theory of Lie algebras beginning with a new notion of categorified vector space, or `2-vector space', which we define as an internal category in Vect, the category of vector spaces. We then define a `semistrict Lie 2-algebra' to be a 2-vector space equipped with a skew-symmetric bilinear functor satis…

Researchers create projective representations of Hecke groups using TQFT.

We construct the Fukaya category of a closed surface equipped with an area form using only elementary (essentially combinatorial) methods. We also compute the Grothendieck group of its derived category.

We develop the intersection theory at relative chain-cochain level, and apply it along with the use of Seifert disks for an oriented link to give a combinatorial algorithm to compute Massey's higher order linking numbers. It is subtle to compute higher-order linking numbers, and it has been a folklore to use the inters…

This reports on the fundamental objects revealed by Ross Street, which he called `orientals'. Street's work was in part inspired by Robert's attempts to use N-category ideas to construct nets of C*-algebras in Minkowski space for applications to relativistic quantum field theory: Roberts' additional challenge was that …

We show that Khovanov homology (and its sl(3) variant) can be understood in the context of higher representation theory. Specifically, we show that the combinatorially defined foam constructions of these theories arise as a family of 2-representations of categorified quantum sl(m) via categorical skew Howe duality. Uti…

New smooth models for string groups defined in ∞-categories.

We construct a pairing, which we call factorization homology, between framed manifolds and higher categories. The essential geometric notion is that of a vari-framing of a stratified manifold, which is a framing on each stratum together with a coherent system of compatibilities of framings along links between strata. O…

Spaces over BO are equivalent to thickened manifolds.

Kaluza-Klein Theory states that a metric on the total space of a principal bundle $P\rightarrow M$, if it is invariant under the principal action of $P$, naturally reduces to a metric together with a gauge field on the base manifold $M$. We propose a generalization of this Kaluza-Klein principle to higher principal bun…

The paper explores how the unit inclusion affects topological quantum field theories in non-semisimple categories.

This thesis bridges Lie theory and sketch theory using tangent categories.

Generalizes van Est map to geometric stacks and homotopy theory.

Unified theory of orbifolds and cohomology.

A group-category is an additively semisimple category with a monoidal product structure in which the simple objects are invertible. For example in the category of representations of a group, 1-dimensional representations are the invertible simple objects. This paper gives a detailed exploration of "topological quantum …

Spider category comparison proves equivalence to Sikora's quotient category.

Smooth actions of infinite groups linked to homotopy theory.

Cone structures in quantum field theory linked to information geometry.

Theory for algebraic data on categories via concentration structures.

We construct the Weil functor $T^A$ corresponding to a general Weil algebra $A = K \oplus N$: this is a functor from the category of manifolds over a general topological base field or ring $K$ (of arbitrary characteristic) to the category of manifolds over $A$. This result simultaneously generalizes results known for o…

We prove that manifolds of Lusternik-Schnirelmann category 2 necessarily have free fundamental group. We thus settle a 1992 conjecture of Gomez-Larranaga and Gonzalez-Acuna, by generalizing their result in dimension 3, to all higher dimensions. We also obtain some general results on the relations between the fundamenta…

The paper connects orbifold singularities to higher symmetries in SQFTs.

We prove that manifolds of Lusternik-Schnirelmann category 2 necessarily have free fundamental group. We thus settle a 1992 conjecture of Gomez-Larranaga and Gonzalez-Acuna, by generalizing their result in dimension 3, to all higher dimensions. We examine its ramifications in systolic topology, and provide a sufficient…