We construct a Chern-Simons type of theory using the $l_\infty$ algebra encoded by a Poisson structure on arbitrary Riemann surfaces with boundaries. A deformation quantization within the Batalin-Vilkovisky framework is performed by constructing propagators with Dirichlet boundary condition on Fulton-MacPherson compactified configuration space. Our results show that the BV quantization is independent of several gauge choices in propagators, which leads to global observables that are candidates for geometric invariants of Poisson structure and topological invariants for the worldsheet structure. At the level of local observables, a Swiss-Cheese algebra structure has been identified. If the Poisson structure is symplectic, the two-dimensional theory is homotopic to a boundary theory. This is known in the classical case, and we confirm that the quantum homotopy exists as well.
General boundary conditions ("branes") for the Poisson sigma model are studied. They turn out to be labeled by coisotropic submanifolds of the given Poisson manifold. The role played by these boundary conditions both at the classical and at the perturbative quantum level is discussed. It turns out to be related at the classical level to the category of Poisson manifolds with dual pairs as morphisms and at the perturbative quantum level to the category of associative algebras (deforming algebras of functions on Poisson manifolds) with bimodules as morphisms. Possibly singular Poisson manifolds …
A globalized version of a trace formula for the Poisson Sigma Model on the disk is presented by using its formal global picture in the setting of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism. This global construction includes the concept of zero modes. Moreover, for the symplectic case of the Poisson Sigma Model with cotangent target, the globalized trace reduces to a symplectic construction which was presented by Grady, Li and Li for 1-dimensional Chern-Simons theory (topological quantum mechanics). In addition, the connection between this formula and the Nest-Tsygan theorem and the Tamarkin-Tsygan theor…
Using methods of formal geometry, the Poisson sigma model on a closed surface is studied in perturbation theory. The effective action, as a function on vacua, is shown to have no quantum corrections if the surface is a torus or if the Poisson structure is regular and unimodular (e.g., symplectic). In the case of a Kahler structure or of a trivial Poisson structure, the partition function on the torus is shown to be the Euler characteristic of the target; some evidence is given for this to happen more generally. The methods of formal geometry introduced in this paper might be applicable to othe…
We consider the Poisson sigma model associated to a Poisson manifold. The perturbative quantization of this model yields the Kontsevich star product formula. We study here the classical model in the Hamiltonian formalism. The phase space is the space of leaves of a Hamiltonian foliation and has a natural groupoid structure. If it is a manifold then it is a symplectic groupoid for the given Poisson manifold. We study various families of examples. In particular, a global symplectic groupoid for a general class of two-dimensional Poisson domains is constructed.
We review and extend the Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-Zaboronsky construction of solutions of the Batalin-Vilkovisky classical master equation. In particular, we study the case of sigma models on manifolds with boundary. We show that a special case of this construction yields the Batalin-Vilkovisky action functional of the Poisson sigma model on a disk. As we have shown in a previous paper, the perturbative quantization of this model is related to Kontsevich's deformation quantization of Poisson manifolds and to his formality theorem. We also discuss the action of diffeomorphisms of the targe…
Poisson sigma models are a very rich class of two-dimensional theories that includes, in particular, all 2D dilaton gravities. By using the Hamiltonian reduction method, we show that a Poisson sigma model (with a sufficiently well-behaving Poisson tensor) on a finite cylinder is equivalent to a noncommutative quantum mechanics for the boundary data.
In this paper we outline the construction of semiclassical eigenfunctions of integrable models in terms of the semiclassical path integral for the Poisson sigma model with the target space being the phase space of the integrable system. The semiclassical path integral is defined as a formal power series with coefficients being Feynman diagrams. We also argue that in a similar way one can obtain irreducible semiclassical representations of Kontsevich's star product.
We extend the coupling to the topological backgrounds, recently worked out for the 2-dimensional BF-model, to the most general Poisson sigma models. The coupling involves the choice of a Casimir function on the target manifold and modifies the BRST transformations. This in turn induces a change in the BRST cohomology of the resulting theory. The observables of the coupled theory are analyzed and their geometrical interpretation is given. We finally couple the theory to 2-dimensional topological gravity: this is the first step to study a topological string theory in propagation on a Poisson man…
We show that the 2d Poisson Sigma Model on a Poisson groupoid arises as an effective theory of the 3d Courant Sigma Model associated to the double of the underlying Lie bialgebroid. This field-theoretic result follows from a Lie-theoretic one involving a coisotropic reduction of the odd cotangent bundle by a generalized space of algebroid paths. We also provide several examples, including the case of symplectic groupoids in which we relate the symplectic realization construction of Crainic-Marcut to a particular gauge fixing of the 3d theory.
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 and the gauged A topological sigma model. In this paper, generalizing the above construction, we construct the Lie algebroid Poisson sigma model. This is yielded by gauging a Hamiltonian Lie groupoid symmetry of the Poisson sigma model target space. We use the BV quantization appr…
We discuss the A-model as a gauge fixing of the Poisson Sigma Model with target a symplectic structure. We complete the discussion in [arXiv:0706.3164], where a gauge fixing defined by a compatible complex structure was introduced, by showing how to recover the A-model hierarchy of observables in terms of the AKSZ observables. Moreover, we discuss the off-shell supersymmetry of the A-model as a residual BV symmetry of the gauge-fixed PSM action.
In this note, we gauge the rigid vectorial supersymmetry of the two-dimensional Poisson sigma model presented in arXiv:1503.05625. We show that the consistency of the construction does not impose any further constraints on the differential Poisson algebra geometry than those required for the ungauged model. We conclude by proposing that the gauged model provides a first-quantized framework for higher spin gravity.
By using the Poisson geometry, we develop a manifestly invariant and calculation-friendly formalism for handling $UOSp(2|1)$-supersymmetric field theories. In particular, the super-Langrangians are written solely in terms of superfields, Poisson brackets and the moment map generating the $UOSp(2|1)$ action. As an application of this formalism, we construct the Kalb-Ramond term for supersymmetric sigma models on the supersphere.
The AKSZ construction was developed as a geometrical formalism to find the solution to the classical master equation in the BV quantization of topological branes based on the concept of QP manifolds. However, the formalism does not apply in presence of Wess-Zumino terms, as demonstrated recently by Ikeda and Strobl in the simplest example of WZW-Poisson sigma models. In this contribution, we review a class of topological field theories in arbitrary dimensions, the twisted R-Poisson sigma models, which suitably generalize Poisson or twisted Poisson sigma models. Their relation to differential g…
The main idea of this note is to describe the integration procedure for poly-Poisson structures, that is, to find a poly-symplectic groupoid integrating a poly-Poisson structure, in terms of topological field theories, namely via the path-space construction. This will be given in terms of the poly-Poisson sigma model $(PPSM)$ and we prove that every poly-Poisson structure has a natural integration via relational poly-symplectic groupoids, extending the results in [8] and [26]. We provide familiar examples (trivial, linear, constant and symplectic) within this formulation and we give some appli…
In this paper, we are going to construct the classical field theory on the boundary of the embedding of $\mathbb{R} \times S^{1}$ into the manifold $M$ by the Jacobi sigma model. By applying the poissonization procedure and by generalizing the known method for Poisson sigma models, we express the fields of the model as perturbative expansions in terms of the reduced phase space of the boundary. We calculate these fields up to the second order and illustrate the procedure for contact manifolds.
We introduce the notion of relational symplectic groupoid as a way to integrate Poisson manifolds in general, following the construction through the Poisson sigma model (PSM) given by Cattaneo and Felder. We extend such construction to the infinite dimensional setting, where we are able to describe the relational symplectic groupoid in terms of immersed Lagrangian Bannach submanifolds. This corresponds to a groupoid object in the "extended symplectic category" and it can be related to the ususal version of symplectic groupoids via reduction. We prove the existence of such an object for any Poi…
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 relation to Hamiltonian basic and equivariant Poisson cohomology. As an application, we carry out the gauge fixing of the pure Weil model and of the Poisson--Weil model. In the first case, we obtain the 2--dimensional version of Donaldson--Witten topological gauge theory, descri…
We present a Poisson-sigma model describing general 2D dilaton gravity with non-metricity, torsion and curvature. It involves three arbitrary functions of the dilaton field, two of which are well-known from metric compatible theories, while the third one characterizes the local strength of non-metricity. As an example we show that alpha' corrections in 2D string theory can generate (target space) non-metricity.
We study a formulation of the standard Poisson sigma model in which the target space Poisson manifold carries the Hamilton action of some finite dimensional Lie algebra. We show that the structure of the action and the properties of the gauge invariant observables can be understood in terms of the associated target space equivariant cohomology. We use a de Rham superfield formalism to efficiently explore the implications of the Batalin Vilkoviski master equation.
The equations of motion of a super non-Abelian T-dual sigma model on the Lie supergroup $(C^1_1+A)$ in the curved background are explicitly solved by the super Poisson-Lie T-duality. To find the solution of the flat model we use the transformation of supercoordinates, transforming the metric into a constant one, which is shown to be a supercanonical transformation. Then, using the super Poisson-Lie T-duality transformations and the dual decomposition of elements of Drinfel'd superdouble, the solution of the equations of motion for the dual sigma model is obtained. The general form of the dilat…
In this paper we discuss some connections between groupoids and Frobenius algebras specialized in the case of Poisson sigma models with boundary. We prove a correspondence between groupoids in the category Set and relative Frobenius algebras in the category Rel, as well as an adjunction between a special type of semigroupoids and relative H*-algebras. The connection between groupoids and Frobenius algebras is made explicit by introducing what we called weak monoids and relational symplectic groupoids, in the context of Poisson sigma models with boundary and in particular, describing such struc…
We determine the solution to the classical master equation for a 3D topological field theory with Wess-Zumino term and an underlying geometrical structure of a twisted R-Poisson manifold on its target space. The graded geometry of the target space departs from the usual QP structure encountered in the AKSZ construction of topological sigma models, the obstruction being attributed to the presence of the Wess-Zumino 4-form. Due to the inapplicability of the AKSZ construction in this case, we set up the traditional BV/BRST formalism for twisted R-Poisson sigma models in any dimension, which featu…
A Manin triples (D; g; ~ g) is a bialgebra (g; ~ g which don't intersect each others and a direct sum of this bialgebra D = g ~ g). If the corresponding Lie groups have a Poisson structure, they are called Poisson-Lie groups. A Poisson-Lie sigma models is an action (3.13) calculated by a Poisson vector eld matrix. [3] have deduced the extremal eld which minimize the action of this models, which gives the motion equation (3.19). We calculate here the action and the equations of motion for some 6-dimensionals Manin triples and we give a general formula for each 4-dimensional Manin triples. The 6…
We construct a formal global quantization of the Poisson Sigma Model in the BV-BFV formalism using the perturbative quantization of AKSZ theories on manifolds with boundary and analyze the properties of the boundary BFV operator. Moreover, we consider mixed boundary conditions and show that they lead to quantum anomalies, i.e. to a failure of the (modified differential) Quantum Master Equation. We show that it can be restored by adding boundary terms to the action, at the price of introducing corner terms in the boundary operator. We also show that the quantum GBFV operator on the total space …
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 considerations lead to a conjectural description of topological D-branes on generalized complex manifolds, which includes A-branes and B-branes as special cases.
We construct a two-dimensional topological sigma model whose target space is endowed with a Poisson algebra for differential forms. The model consists of an equal number of bosonic and fermionic fields of worldsheet form degrees zero and one. The action is built using exterior products and derivatives, without any reference to any worldsheet metric, and is of the covariant Hamiltonian form. The equations of motion define a universally Cartan integrable system. In addition to gauge symmetries, the model has one rigid nilpotent supersymmetry corresponding to the target space de Rham operator. Th…
We derive the explicit form of the superpropagators in presence of general boundary conditions (coisotropic branes) for the Poisson Sigma Model. This generalizes the results presented in Cattaneo and Felder's previous works for the Kontsevich angle function used in the deformation quantization program of Poisson manifolds without branes or with at most two branes. The relevant superpropagators for n branes are defined as gauge fixed homotopy operators of a complex of differential forms on n sided polygons P_n with particular "alternating" boundary conditions. In presence of more than three bra…
We construct recursively an infinite number of Poisson structures for the supersymmetric integrable hierarchy governing the Pohlmeyer reduction of superstring sigma models on the target spaces AdS_{n}\times S^n, n=2,3,5. These Poisson structures are all non-local and not relativistic except one, which is the canonical Poisson structure of the semi-symmetric space sine-Gordon model (SSSSG). We verify that the superposition of the first three Poisson structures corresponds to the canonical Poisson structure of the reduced sigma model. Using the recursion relations we construct commuting charges …
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 the PSM in the literature are not globally well-defined for non-parallelizable Poisson manifolds and propose a covariant definition of them as left action of some finite-dimensional Lie algebroid. Our approach allows to avoid complications arising in the infinite dimensional super-…
Using the concept of Jacobi-Lie group and Jacobi-Lie bialgebra, we generalize the definition of Poisson-Lie symmetry to Jacobi-Lie symmetry. In this regard, we generalize the concept of Poisson-Lie T-duality to Jacobi-Lie T-duality and present Jacobi-Lie T-dual sigma models on Lie groups, which have Jacobi-Lie symmetry. Using this symmetry, new cases of duality appear and some examples are given. This generalization may provide insights to understand the quantum features of Poisson-Lie T-duality, in a more satisfactory way.
We present the BFV and the BV extension of the Poisson sigma model (PSM) twisted by a closed 3-form H. There exist superfield versions of these functionals such as for the PSM and, more generally, for the AKSZ sigma models. However, in contrast to those theories, here they depend on the Euler vector field of the source manifold and contain terms mixing data from the source and the target manifold. Using an auxiliary connection $\nabla$ on the target manifold M, we obtain alternative, purely geometrical expressions without the use of superfields, which are new also for the ordinary PSM and prom…
We generalize the $(n+1)$-dimensional twisted $R$-Poisson topological sigma model with flux on a target Poisson manifold to a Lie algebroid. Analyzing consistency of constraints in the Hamiltonian formalism and the gauge symmetry in the Lagrangian formalism, geometric conditions of the target space to make the topological sigma model consistent are identified. The geometric condition is an universal compatibility condition of a Lie algebroid with the multi-symplectic structure. This condition is a generalization of the momentum map theory of a Lie group and is regarded as a generalization of t…
A-type Sigma Models from Differential Poisson Geometry
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；Instituto de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Arturo Prat（阿尔图罗·普拉特大学理学院精确与自然科学研究所）
We extend the AKSZ formulation of the Poisson sigma model to more general target spaces, and we develop the general theory of graded geometry for poly-symplectic and poly-Poisson structures. In particular we prove a Schwarz-type theorem and transgression for graded poly-symplectic structures, recovering the action functional and the poly-symplectic structure of the reduced phase space of the poly-Poisson sigma model, from the AKSZ construction.
We develop quantization techniques for describing the nonassociative geometry probed by closed strings in flat non-geometric R-flux backgrounds M. Starting from a suitable Courant sigma-model on an open membrane with target space M, regarded as a topological sector of closed string dynamics in R-space, we derive a twisted Poisson sigma-model on the boundary of the membrane whose target space is the cotangent bundle T^*M and whose quasi-Poisson structure coincides with those previously proposed. We argue that from the membrane perspective the path integral over multivalued closed string fields …
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.
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 Poisson, presymplectic, but also complex structures. Proofs are given in detail. The second part deals with sigma models. Topological ones, in particular the AKSZ and the Dirac sigma models, as generalizations of the Poisson sigma models to higher dimensions and to Dirac structu…
We present the construction of the classical Batalin-Vilkovisky action for topological Dirac sigma models. The latter are two-dimensional topological field theories that simultaneously generalise the completely gauged Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model and the Poisson sigma model. Their underlying structure is that of Dirac manifolds associated to maximal isotropic and integrable subbundles of an exact Courant algebroid twisted by a 3-form. In contrast to the Poisson sigma model, the AKSZ construction is not applicable for the general Dirac sigma model. We therefore follow a direct approach for …
The Poisson sigma model is a widely studied two-dimensional topological field theory. This note shows that boundary conditions for the Poisson sigma model are related to coisotropic submanifolds (a result announced in [math.QA/0309180]) and that the corresponding reduced phase space is a (possibly singular) dual pair between the reduced spaces of the given two coisotropic submanifolds. In addition the generalization to a more general tensor field is considered and it is shown that the theory produces Lagrangian evolution relations if and only if the tensor field is Poisson.
These are lecture notes for the course "Poisson geometry and deformation quantization" given by the author during the fall semester 2020 at the University of Zurich. The first chapter is an introduction to differential geometry, where we cover manifolds, tensor fields, integration on manifolds, Stokes' theorem, de Rham's theorem and Frobenius' theorem. The second chapter covers the most important notions of symplectic geometry such as Lagrangian submanifolds, Weinstein's tubular neighborhood theorem, Hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps and symplectic reduction. The third chapter gives an introd…
Consistent boundary conditions for Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwartz-Zaboronsky (AKSZ) sigma models and the corresponding boundary theories are analyzed. As their mathematical structures, we introduce a generalization of differential graded symplectic manifolds, called twisted QP manifolds, in terms of graded symplectic geometry, canonical functions, and QP pairs. We generalize the AKSZ construction of topological sigma models to sigma models with Wess-Zumino terms and show that all the twisted Poisson-like structures known in the literature can actually be naturally realized as boundary conditio…
We study aspects of two-dimensional nonlinear sigma models with Wess-Zumino term corresponding to a nonclosed 3-form, which may arise upon dimensional reduction in the target space. Our goal in this paper is twofold. In a first part, we investigate the conditions for consistent gauging of sigma models in the presence of a nonclosed 3-form. In the Abelian case, we find that the target of the gauged theory has the structure of a contact Courant algebroid, twisted by a 3-form and two 2-forms. Gauge invariance constrains the theory to (small) Dirac structures of the contact Courant algebroid. In t…
We consider a quantum affine algebra realized in two-dimensional non-linear sigma models with target space three-dimensional squashed sphere. Its affine generators are explicitly constructed and the Poisson brackets are computed. The defining relations of quantum affine algebra in the sense of the Drinfeld first realization are satisfied at classical level. The relation to the Drinfeld second realization is also discussed including higher conserved charges. Finally we comment on a semiclassical limit of quantum affine algebra at quantum level.
We construct a class of topological field theories with Wess-Zumino term in spacetime dimensions $\ge 2$ whose target space has a geometrical structure that suitably generalizes Poisson or twisted Poisson manifolds. Assuming a field content comprising a set of scalar fields accompanied by gauge fields of degree $(1,p-1,p)$ we determine a generic Wess-Zumino topological field theory in $p+1$ dimensions with background data consisting of a Poisson 2-vector, a $(p+1)$-vector $R$ and a $(p+2)$-form $H$ satisfying a specific geometrical condition that defines a $H$-twisted $R$-Poisson structure of …
The background field method (BFM) for the Poisson Sigma Model (PSM) is studied as an example of the application of the BFM technique to open gauge algebras. The relationship with Seiberg-Witten maps arising in non-commutative gauge theories is clarified. It is shown that the implementation of the BFM for the PSM in the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism is equivalent to the solution of a generalized linearization problem (in the formal sense) for Poisson structures in the presence of gauge fields. Sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution and a constructive method to derive it are presen…
A common approach to the quantization of integrable models starts with the formal substitution of the Yang-Baxter Poisson algebra with its quantum version. However it is difficult to discern the presence of such an algebra for the so-called non-ultralocal models. The latter includes the class of non-linear sigma models which are most interesting from the point of view of applications. In this work, we investigate the emergence of the Yang-Baxter Poisson algebra in a non-ultralocal system which is related to integrable deformations of the Principal Chiral Field.
