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 gerbes.
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 condition is the same used by Pressley and Segal; in general, it was introduced by Deligne and the author. The gerbe is defined by geometric methods, using the so-called Grothendieck manifold. It is equivariant under the conjugation action of G; its restriction to a semisimple orb…
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 compact simple Lie groups.
We give a precise and general description of gerbes valued in arbitrary crossed module and over an arbitrary differential stack. We do it using only Lie groupoids, hence ordinary differential geometry. We prove the coincidence with the existing notions by comparing our construction with non-Abelian cohomology.
Infinitesimal symmetries of $S^1$-bundle gerbes are modelled with multiplicative vector fields on Lie groupoids. It is shown that a connective structure on a bundle gerbe gives rise to a natural horizontal lift of multiplicative vector fields to the bundle gerbe, and that the 3-curvature presents the obstruction to the horizontal lift being a morphism of Lie 2-algebras. Connection-preserving multiplicative vector fields on a bundle gerbe with connective structure are shown to inherit a natural Lie 2-algebra structure; moreover, this Lie 2-algebra is canonically quasi-isomorphic to the Poisson-…
We present an explicit construction of the basic bundle gerbes with connection over all connected compact simple Lie groups. These are geometric objects that appear naturally in the Lagrangian approach to the WZW conformal field theories. Our work extends the recent construction of E. Meinrenken \cite{Meinr} restricted to the case of simply connected groups.
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 algebraic structures for bundle gerbes with connection such as Jandl structures, gerbe modules and gerbe bimodules, and indicate their applications to Wess-Zumino terms in two-dimensional field theories.
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 group-valued moment maps is developed, and its equivalence with the pre-quantization of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian loop group spaces is established.
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 applications in physics.
We consider the construction of the basic bundle gerbe on SU(n) introduced by Meinrenken and show that it extends to a range of groups with unitary actions on a Hilbert space including U(n), diagonal tori and the Banach Lie group of unitary operators differing from the identity by an element of a Schatten ideal. In all these cases we give an explicit connection and curving on the basic bundle gerbe and calculate the real Dixmier-Douady class. Extensive use is made of the holomorphic functional calculus for operators on a Hilbert space.
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 equivariant Serre-Swan theorem for twisted vector bundles.
Our main aim is to associate a holonomy Lie groupoid to the connective structure of an abelian gerbe. The construction has analogies with a procedure for the holonomy Lie groupoid of a foliation, in using a locally Lie groupoid and a globalisation procedure. We show that path connections and 2-holonomy on line bundles may be formulated using the notion of a connection pair on a double category, due to Brown-Spencer, but now formulated in terms of double groupoids using the thin fundamental groupoids introduced by Caetano-Mackaay-Picken. To obtain a locally Lie groupoid to which globalisation a…
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.
Résumé. Nous définissons un groupoïde de Fréchet-Lie Map(S^1,X) d'ana-foncteurs du cercle vers un groupoïde de Lie X. Ceci fournit une présentation du Hom-champ Hom(S^1,\cX), où \cX est le champ différentiable associé à X. Nous appliquons cette construction au groupoïde de Lie sous-jacent au `gerbe fibré' d'une variété différentiable M; le résultat est un gerbe fibré au-dessus de l'espace des lacets LM de M. Abstract. We define a Fréchet--Lie groupoid Map(S^1,X) of anafunctors from the circle into a Lie groupoid X. This provides a presentation of the Hom-stack Hom(S^1,\cX), where \cX is the di…
Given a central extension of Lie groups, we study the classification problem of lifting the structure group together with a given connection. For reductive structure groups we introduce a new connective structure on the lifting gerbe associated to this problem. Our main result classifies all connections on the central extension of a given principal bundle. In particular, we find that admissible connections are in one-to-one correspondence with parallel trivializations of the lifting gerbe. Moreover, we prove a vanishing result for Neeb's obstruction classes for finite-dimensional Lie groups.
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 classes of G-equivariant gerbe connections are classified by degree three differential equivariant cohomology. Finally, we consider the existence and uniqueness of conjugation-equivariant gerbe connections on compact semisimple Lie groups.
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 a unitary group and a string structure for a principal bundle. We show that the basic bundle gerbe is equivariant for the conjugation action and calculate its characteristic class; we show also that a string structure gives rise to a bundle gerbe which is equivariant for a natur…
Let $\mathcal{G}$ be a Lie groupoid. The category $B\mathcal{G}$ of principal $\mathcal{G}$-bundles defines a differentiable stack. On the other hand, given a differentiable stack $\mathcal{D}$, there exists a Lie groupoid $\mathcal{H}$ such that $B\mathcal{H}$ is isomorphic to $\mathcal{D}$. Define a gerbe over a stack as a morphism of stacks $F\colon \mathcal{D}\rightarrow \mathcal{C}$, such that $F$ and the diagonal map $Δ_F\colon \mathcal{D}\rightarrow \mathcal{D}\times_{\mathcal{C}}\mathcal{D}$ are epimorphisms. This paper explores the relationship between a gerbe defined above and a Mori…
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 stable isomorphism classes of bundle gerbes with connection and curving over the quotient space. A bundle gerbe naturally arising in Chern-Simons theory provides an example of the reduction.
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 string structures can be described and classified using 2-crossed module bundle 2-gerbes.
We consider groupoids in the category of principal bundles, which we call principal bundles (PB) groupoids. Inspired by work by Th. Nikolaus and K. Waldorf, we generalise bundle gerbes over manifolds to bundle gerbes over groupoids and discuss a functorial correspondence between PB groupoids and bundle gerbes over groupoids. From a PB groupoid over a fibre product groupoid, we build a bundle gerbe over another fibre product groupoid. Conversely, from a bundle gerbe over a Lie groupoid, we build a PB groupoid. It has a trivial base and from any PB groupoid with trivial base, we build a bundle g…
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 identities. In particular, we develop a cohomology theory which measures the existence of connections and curvings for $G$-gerbes over stacks. We also introduce $G$-central extensions of groupoids, generalizing the standard groupoid $S^1$-central extensions. As an example, we apply…
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 extensions of loop groups, Chern-Simons actions for arbitrary gauge groups, and symmetric bi-branes for WZW models with topological defect lines.
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 these notions to refine the Dijkgraaf-Witten correspondence between three dimensional Chern-Simons functionals and Wess-Zumino-Witten models associated to the group $G$. We do this by introducing a lifting to the level of bundle gerbes of the natural map from $H^4(BG, \ZZ)$ to $H…
Many bundle gerbes constructed in practice are either infinite-dimensional, or finite-dimensional but built using submersions that are far from being fibre bundles. Murray and Stevenson proved that gerbes on simply-connected manifolds, built from finite-dimensional fibre bundles with connected fibres, always have a torsion $DD$-class. In this note I prove an analogous result for a wide class of gerbes built from principal bundles, relaxing the requirements on the fundamental group of the base and the connected components of the fibre, allowing both to be nontrivial. This has consequences for p…
We study $S^1$-bundles and $S^1$-gerbes over differentiable stacks in terms of Lie groupoids, and construct Chern classes and Dixmier-Douady classes in terms of analogues of connections and curvature.
In the first chapter, we give a precise and general description of gerbes valued in arbitrary crossed module and over an arbitrary differential stack. We do it using only Lie groupoids, hence ordinary differential geometry, by considering differential stacks as being Lie groupoids up to Morita equivalence. We prove the coincidence with the existing notions by comparing our construction with non-Abelian cohomology. More precisely, we introduce the key notion of extension of Lie groupoids valued in a crossed-module. We relate it with Dedecker's non-Abelian 1-cocycles, and we then show that Morit…
Let $G$ be a Lie group and $G\to\Aut(G)$ be the canonical group homomorphism induced by the adjoint action of a group on itself. We give an explicit description of a 1-1 correspondence between Morita equivalence classes of, on the one hand, principal 2-group $[G\to\Aut(G)]$-bundles over Lie groupoids and, on the other hand, $G$-extensions of Lie groupoids (i.e.\ between principal $[G\to\Aut(G)]$-bundles over differentiable stacks and $G$-gerbes over differentiable stacks). This approach also allows us to identify $G$-bound gerbes and $[Z(G)\to 1]$-group bundles over differentiable stacks, wher…
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 role of a band, or structure 2-group. Upon choosing certain examples of Lie 2-groups, our axiomatic framework reproduces in a systematical way several known concepts of gerbes with connection: non-abelian differential cocycles, Breen-Messing gerbes, abelian and non-abelian bundle…
We give a geometric description of the fusion rules of the affine Lie algebra su(2)_k at a positive integer level k in terms of the k-th power of the basic gerbe over the Lie group SU(2). The gerbe can be trivialised over conjugacy classes corresponding to dominant weights of su(2)_k via a 1-isomorphism. The fusion-rule coefficients are related to the existence of a 2-isomorphism between pullbacks of these 1-isomorphisms to a submanifold of SU(2) x SU(2) determined by the corresponding three conjugacy classes. This construction is motivated by its application in the description of junctions of…
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 much of the basic theory of gerbes in such language. Then, once the relevant technology has been described, we give a first-principles geometric derivation of discrete torsion. In other words, we define equivariant gerbes, and classify equivariant structures on gerbes and on gerbes…
In this paper we establish a one-to-one correspondence between $S^1$-gerbes with connections, on the one hand, and their holonomies, for simply connected manifolds, or their parallel transports, in the general case, on the other hand. This result is a higher-order analogue of the familiar equivalence between bundles with connections and their holonomies for connected manifolds. The holonomy of a gerbe with group $S^1$ on a simply connected manifold $M$ is a group morphism from the thin second homotopy group to $S^1$, satisfying a smoothness condition, where a homotopy between maps from $[0,1]^…
We consider topological T-duality of torus bundles equipped with S^{1}-gerbes. We show how a geometry on the gerbe determines a reduction of its band to the subsheaf of S^{1}-valued functions which are constant along the torus fibres. We observe that such a reduction is exactly the additional datum needed for the construction of a T-dual pair. We illustrate the theory by working out the example of the canonical lifting gerbe on a compact Lie group which is a torus bundles over the associated flag manifold. It was a recent observation of Daenzer and van Erp (arXiv1211.0763) that for certain com…
A novel Lie-superalgebraic description of the superstring in the super-Minkowskian background is extracted from the Cartan-Eilenberg super-1-gerbe geometrising the higher gauge field (the Green-Schwarz super-3-cocycle) that couples to the supercharge carried by the superstring. The description assumes the form of a hierarchy of Lie superalgebras integrable to a hierarchy of Lie supergroups and provides a manifestly supersymmetric model of a family of supermanifolds defining a trivialisation of the super-1-gerbe over the embedded superstring worldsheet. The trivialisation, obtained in a purely …
We study bundle gerbes on manifolds $M$ that carry an action of a connected Lie group $G$. We show that these data give rise to a smooth 2-group extension of $G$ by the smooth 2-group of hermitean line bundles on $M$. This 2-group extension classifies equivariant structures on the bundle gerbe, and its non-triviality poses an obstruction to the existence of equivariant structures. We present a new global approach to the parallel transport of a bundle gerbe with connection, and use it to give an alternative construction of this smooth 2-group extension in terms of a homotopy-coherent version of…
In this note we present a new construction of the string group that ends optionally in two different contexts: strict diffeological 2-groups or finite-dimensional Lie 2-groups. It is canonical in the sense that no choices are involved; all the data is written down and can be looked up (at least somewhere). The basis of our construction is the basic gerbe of Gawedzki-Reis and Meinrenken. The main new insight is that under a transgression-regression procedure, the basic gerbe picks up a multiplicative structure coming from the Mickelsson product over the loop group. The conclusion of the constru…
In this PhD thesis, we have studied certain geometric structures over Lie groupoids and differentiable stacks. This thesis is based on the work [arXiv:2103.04560, arXiv:2012.08447, arXiv:2012.08442, arXiv:1907.00375]. In [arXiv:1907.00375], we have discussed the correspondence between two notions of a gerbe over a stack. In [arXiv:2012.08447], we have developed the notion of Chern-Weil map for principal bundles over a Lie groupoid when the Lie groupoid is equipped with a connection. In [arXiv:2012.08442], we discuss the notion of connection on the principal bundle over a Deligne Mumford stack …
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 cohomology $H^\bullet ({\barΩ}^\bullet (M, G, L)_g, d^α_{G^g})$, indexed by $g\in G$. We prove that there exists a natural family of chain maps, indexed by $g\in G$, inducing a family of morphisms from the equivariant periodic cyclic homology $HP^G_\bullet ( C^\infty (M, α) )$, whe…
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-prestacks. Finally we show that, for a 2-stack, the pullback functor along a Morita-equivalence of Lie groupoids is an equivalence of bicategories. Our results have direct applications to gerbes and 2-vector bundles. For instance, they allow to construct equivariant gerbes from loc…
In this paper, we consider diffeological spaces as stacks over the site of smooth manifolds, as well as the "underlying" diffeological space of any stack. More precisely, we consider diffeological spaces as so-called concrete sheaves and show that the Grothendieck construction sending these sheaves to stacks has a left adjoint: the functor sending any stack to its diffeological coarse moduli space. As an application, we restrict our attention to differentiable stacks and examine the geometry behind the coarse moduli space construction in terms of Lie groupoids and their principal bundles. With…
In this easy introduction to higher gauge theory, we describe parallel transport for particles and strings in terms of 2-connections on 2-bundles. Just as ordinary gauge theory involves a gauge group, this generalization involves a gauge '2-group'. We focus on 6 examples. First, every abelian Lie group gives a Lie 2-group; the case of U(1) yields the theory of U(1) gerbes, which play an important role in string theory and multisymplectic geometry. Second, every group representation gives a Lie 2-group; the representation of the Lorentz group on 4d Minkowski spacetime gives the Poincaré 2-group…
As groupoids generalize groups, motivated by group extensions we consider a kind of fibrations of Lie groupoids, called locally topological product Lie groupoid fibrations with fiber $\sf A$, i.e., \[ 1\rightarrow {\sf A} \rightarrow {\sf G} \rightarrow {\sf K}\rightarrow 1 \] where $\sf A,\sf G$ and $\sf K$ are Lie groupoids. Similar to the theory of group extensions, we show that the existence of locally topological product Lie groupoid fibrations with fiber $\sf A$ over $\sf K$ is obstructed by a groupoid cohomology of $H^3_{\bar Λ}({\sf K},Z_{\sf A})$, and these locally topological product…
The simplest orientifolds of the WZW models are obtained by gauging a Z_2 symmetry group generated by a combined involution of the target Lie group G and of the worldsheet. The action of the involution on the target is by a twisted inversion g \mapsto (ζg)^{-1}, where ζis an element of the center of G. It reverses the sign of the Kalb-Ramond torsion field H given by a bi-invariant closed 3-form on G. The action on the worldsheet reverses its orientation. An unambiguous definition of Feynman amplitudes of the orientifold theory requires a choice of a gerbe with curvature H on the target group G…
A classical result in differential geometry states that for a free and proper Lie group action, the quotient map to the orbit space induces an isomorphism between the de Rham complex of differential forms on the orbit space and the basic differential forms on the original manifold. In this paper, this result is generalized to the case of a proper Lie groupoid, in which the orbit space is equipped with the quotient diffeological structure. As an application of this, we obtain a de Rham theorem for the de Rham complex on the orbit space.
The assumption in the main result of [Peter W. Michor: Basic Differential Forms for Actions of Lie Groups, Proc. AMS 124, 5 (1996) 1633-1642] is removed. Thus: A section of a Riemannian $G$-manifold $M$ is a closed submanifold $\Si$ which meets each orbit orthogonally. It is shown that the algebra of $G$-invariant differential forms on $M$ which are horizontal in the sense that they kill every vector which is tangent to some orbit, is isomorphic to the algebra of those differential forms on $\Si$ which are invariant with respect to the generalized Weyl group of $\Si$, without any further condi…
The bigerbes introduced here give a refinement of the notion of 2-gerbes, representing degree four integral cohomology classes of a space. Defined in terms of bisimplicial line bundles, bigerbes have a symmetry with respect to which they form 'bundle 2-gerbes' in two ways; this structure replaces higher associativity conditions. We provide natural examples, including a Brylinski-McLaughlin bigerbe associated to a principal G-bundle for a simply connected simple Lie group. This represents the first Pontryagin class of the bundle, and is the obstruction to the lifting problem on the associated p…
A section of a Riemannian $G$-manifold $M$ is a closed submanifold $Σ$ which meets each orbit orthogonally. It is shown that the algebra of $G$-invariant differential forms on $M$ which are horizontal in the sense that they kill every vector which is tangent to some orbit, is isomorphic to the algebra of those differential forms on $Σ$ which are invariant with respect to the generalized Weyl group of this orbit, under some condition.
For Riemannian submersions with fibers of basic mean curvature, we compare the spectrum of the total space with the spectrum of a Schrödinger operator on the base manifold. Exploiting this concept, we study submersions arising from actions of Lie groups. In this context, we extend the state of the art results on the bottom of the spectrum under Riemannian coverings. As an application, we compute the bottom of the spectrum and the Cheeger constant of connected, amenable Lie groups.
This is an expository paper in which we explain how basic, standard, results about simple Lie algebras can be obtained by geometric arguments, following ideas of Cartan, Richardson and others.