This is the final manuscript of the author, prepared before submission to the publisher. Journal of Homotopy and Related Structures (2013) Accepted for publication
We examine the topological characteristic cohomology classes of complexified vector bundles. In particular, all the classes coming from the real vector bundles underlying the complexification are determined.
This paper deals with two aspects of the theory of characteristic classes of star products: first, on an arbitrary Poisson manifold, we describe Morita equivalent star products in terms of their Kontsevich classes; second, on symplectic manifolds, we describe the relationship between Kontsevich's and Fedosov's characteristic classes of star products.
In this paper exterior products are used to define operations and characteristic classes with values in the K-theory of an abelian category with tensor and exterior products. We apply the general construction to define Chern and Segre classes with values in algebraic K-theory and the K-theory of connections.
This paper examines a number of related questions about Euler characteristics and characteristic classes with values in Witt cohomology. We establish a motivic version of the Becker-Gottllieb transfer, generalizing a construction of Hoyois. Ananyevskiy's splitting principle reduces questions about characteristic classes of vector bundles in $\text{SL}$-oriented, $η$-invertible theories to the case of rank two bundles. We refine the torus-normalizer splitting principle for $\text{SL}_2$ to help compute the characteristic classes in Witt cohomology of symmetric powers of a rank two bundle, and t…
In this note we clarify the relevance of ``connections up to homotopy'' to the theory of characteristic classes. We have already remarked \cite{Crai} that such connections up to homotopy can be used to compute the classical Chern characters. Here we present a slightly different argument for this, and then proceed with the discussion of the flat (secondary) characteristic classes. As an application, we clarify the relation between the two different approaches to characteristic classes of algebroids (and of Poisson manifolds in particular): we explain that the intrinsic characteristic classes ar…
We construct new subtle Stiefel--Whitney classes of quadratic forms. These classes are much more informative than the ones introduced by Milnor. In particular, they see all the powers of the fundamental ideal of the Witt ring, contain the Arason invariant and it's higher analogues. Moreover, the new classes allow to treat the J-invariant of quadrics. This invariant, introduced in 2005, has been so far completely isolated from characteristic classes. In addition, our classes allow to describe explicitly the structure of some motives associated with quadratic forms.
We study a Hopf algebroid, $\calh$, naturally associated to the groupoid $U_n^δ\ltimes U_n$. We show that classes in the Hopf cyclic cohomology of $\calh$ can be used to define secondary characteristic classes of trivialized flat $U_n$-bundles. For example, there is a cyclic class which corresponds to the universal transgressed Chern character and which gives rise to the continuous part of the $ρ$-invariant of Atiyah-Patodi-Singer. Moreover, these cyclic classes are shown to extend to the K-theory of the associated $C^{*}$-algebra. This point of view gives leads to homotopy invariance results …
In this paper we give explicit formulas of differential characteristic classes of principal $G$-bundles with connections and prove their expected properties. In particular, we obtain explicit formulas for differential Chern classes, differential Pontryagin classes and differential Euler class. Furthermore, we show that the differential Chern class is the unique natural transformation from (Simons-Sullivan) differential $K$-theory to (Cheeger-Simons) differential characters that is compatible with curvature and characteristic class. We also give the explicit formula for the differential Chern c…
Following [14], we compute the motivic cohomology ring of the Nisnevich classifying space of the unitary group associated to the standard split hermitian form of a quadratic extension. This provides us with subtle characteristic classes which take value in the motivic cohomology of the Čech simplicial scheme associated to a hermitian form. Comparing these new classes with subtle Stiefel-Whitney classes arising in the orthogonal case, we obtain relations among the latter ones holding in the motivic cohomology of the Čech simplicial scheme associated to a quadratic form divisible by a 1-fold Pfi…
We give an axiomatic characterization of maps from algebraic K-theory. The results apply to a class of maps from algebraic K-theory to any suitable cohomology theory or to algebraic K-theory, which includes all group morphisms. In particular, we obtain comparison theorems for the Chern character and Chern classes and for the Lambda and Adams operations on higher algebraic K-theory. We show that the Adams operations defined by Grayson agree with the ones defined by Gillet and Soule.
In this paper we identify many striking elements in Leibniz (co)homology which arise from characteristic classes and K-theory. For a group G a field k of characteristic zero, it is shown that all primary characteristic classes, i.e. H^*(BG; k), naturally inject into certain Leibniz cohomology groups via an explicit chain map. Moreover, if f: A \to B is a homomorphism of algebras or rigns, the relative Leibniz homology groups HL_*(f) are defined, and if in addition f is surjective with nilpotent kernel, A and B algebras over the rationals, then there is a natural surjection HL_{*+1}(gl(f)) \to …
A standard combinatorial construction, due to Kontsevich, associates to any A-infinity algebra with an invariant inner product, an inhomogeneous class in the cohomology of the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with marked points. We describe an alternative version of this construction based on noncommutative geometry and use it to prove that homotopy equivalent algebras give rise to the same cohomology classes. Along the way we re-prove Kontsevich's theorem relating graph homology to the homology of certain infinite-dimensional Lie algebras. An application to topological conformal field theori…
We construct characteristic classes for singular algebraic varieties in motivic Borel-Moore homology, extending the motivic Euler class of the tangent bundle defined for smooth varieties. The two classes we define refine, in the setting of motivic homotopy theory, the top degree of the class constructed by Brasselet-Schuermann-Yokura in G-theory, and the top degree of the pro-CSM class constructed by Aluffi in pro-Chow groups. We deduce an extension of the motivic Gauss-Bonnet formula to non-smooth proper varieties.
In this paper we study the variability and rigidity of secondary characteristic classes which arise from flat connections on a manifold. Considering the connection as a Lie-algebra valued one-form, we study the characteristic map from Lie algebra cohomology to de Rham cohomology of the manifold, and prove that if the Leibniz cohomology of the Lie algebra vanishes, then all secondary characteristic classes are rigid. In the case of codimension one foliations (with trivial normal bundle), we show that a characteristic map from the Leibniz cohomology of formal vector fields to the de Rham cohomol…
We refine the cyclic cohomological apparatus for computing the Hopf cyclic cohomology of the Hopf algebras associated to infinite primitive Cartan-Lie pseudogroups, and for the transfer of their characteristic classes to foliations. The main novel feature is the precise identification as a Hopf cyclic complex of the image of the canonical homomorphism from the Gelfand-Fuks complex to the Bott complex for equivariant cohomology. This provides a convenient new model for the Hopf cyclic cohomology of the geometric Hopf algebras, which allows for an efficient transport of the Hopf cyclic classes v…
We have previously shown that the truncated Weil algebra of any Lie algebra is a Hopf-cyclic type complex with nontrivial coefficients. In this paper we apply this result to transfer the characteristic classes of transversely orientable foliations into the cyclic cohomology of the groupoid action algebra. Our result in codimension 1 matches with the only existing explicit computation done by Connes-Moscovici. In codimension 2 case, we carry out a constructive and explicit computation, by which we present the transverse fundamental class, the Godbillon-Vey class, and the other four residual cla…
We discuss secondary (and higher) characteristic classes for algebraic vector bundles with trivial top Chern class. We show that if X is a smooth affine scheme of dimension d over a field k of finite 2-cohomological dimension (with char(k) $\neq$ 2) and E is a rank d vector bundle over X, vanishing of the Chow-Witt theoretic Euler class of E is equivalent to vanishing of its top Chern class and these higher classes. We then derive some consequences of our main theorem when k is of small 2-cohomological dimension.
Let $K$ be the K3 manifold. In this note, we discuss two methods to prove that certain generalized Miller--Morita--Mumford classes for smooth bundles with fiber $K$ are non-zero. As a consequence, we fill a gap in a paper of the first author, and prove that the homomorphism $Diff(K)\to π_0 Diff(K)$ does not split. One of the two methods of proof uses a result of Franke on the stable cohomology of arithmetic groups that strengthens work of Borel, and may be of independent interest.
In the first section we discuss Morita invariance of differentiable/algebroid cohomology. In the second section we present an extension of the van Est isomorphism to groupoids. This immediately implies a version of Haefliger's conjecture for differentiable cohomology. As a first application we clarify the connection between differentiable and algebroid cohomology (proved in degree 1, and conjectured in degree 2 by Weinstein-Xu). As a second application we extend van Est's argument for the integrability of Lie algebras. Applied to Poisson manifolds, this immediately gives (a slight improvement …