The dual Kontsevich cycles in the double dual of associative graph homology correspond to polynomials in the Miller-Morita-Mumford classes in the integral cohomology of mapping class groups. I explain how the coefficients of these polynomials can be computed using Stasheff polyhedra and results from my previous paper GT/0207042.
Let an n-algebra mean an algebra over the chain complex of the little n-cubes operad. We give a proof of Kontsevich's conjecture, which states that for a suitable notion of Hochschild cohomology in the category of n-algebras, the Hochschild cohomology complex of an n-algebra is an (n+1)-algebra. This generalizes a conjecture by Deligne for n=1, now proven by several authors.
Using factorization homology techniques, we give a simple proof of the action of Kontsevich and Soibelman operad on the pair consisting of Hochschild cohomology and Hochschild homology. The proof obviously extends to higher Hochschild cohomology and factorization (also called chiral) homology. Note that our result works in categories of chain complexes but also in categories of modules over a commutative ring spectrum.
It is known that the combinatorial classes in the cohomology of the mapping class group of punctures surfaces defined by Witten and Kontsevich are polynomials in the adjusted Miller-Morita-Mumford classes. The leading coefficient was computed in [Kiyoshi Igusa: Algebr. Geom. Topol. 4 (2004) 473-520]. The next coefficient was computed in [Kiyoshi Igusa: math.AT/0303157, to appear in Topology]. The present paper gives a recursive formula for all of the coefficients. The main combinatorial tool is a generating function for a new statistic on the set of increasing trees on 2n+1 vertices. As we alr…
Standard combinatorial construction, due to Kontsevich, associates to any $\ai$-algebra with an invariant inner product, an inhomogeneous class in the cohomology of the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with marked points. We propose 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 theories is gi…
We study the topology of a space parametrizing stable tropical curves of genus g with volume 1, showing that its reduced rational homology is canonically identified with both the top weight cohomology of M_g and also with the genus g part of the homology of Kontsevich's graph complex. Using a theorem of Willwacher relating this graph complex to the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra, we deduce that H^{4g-6}(M_g;Q) is nonzero for g=3, g=5, and g at least 7. This disproves a recent conjecture of Church, Farb, and Putman as well as an older, more general conjecture of Kontsevich. We also give …
We consider graph complexes with a flow and compute their cohomology. More specifically, we prove that for a PROP generated by a Koszul dioperad, the corresponding graph complex gives a minimal model of the PROP. We also give another proof of the existence of a minimal model of the bialgebra PROP from math.AT/0209007. These results are based on the useful notion of a 1/2 PROP introduced by Kontsevich in an e-mail message to the first author.
We introduce a Bredon motivic cohomology theory for smooth schemes defined over a field and equipped with an action by a finite group. These cohomology groups are defined for finite dimensional representations as the hypercohomology of complexes of equivariant correspondences in the equivariant Nisnevich topology. We generalize the theory of presheaves with transfers to the equivariant setting and prove a Cancellation Theorem.
For certain manifolds with an involution the mod 2 cohomology ring of the set of fixed points is isomorphic to the cohomology ring of the manifold, up to dividing the degrees by two. Examples include complex projective spaces and Grassmannians with the standard antiholomorphic involution (with real projective spaces and Grassmannians as fixed point sets). Hausmann, Holm and Puppe have put this observation in the framework of equivariant cohomology, and come up with the concept of "conjugation spaces", where the ring homomorphisms arise naturally from the existence of what they call "cohomology…
We compute the cohomology groups of the spaces of colorings of cycles, i.e., of the prodsimplicial complexes Hom(C_m,K_n). We perform the computation first with Z_2, and then with integer coefficients. The main technical tool is to use spectral sequences in conjunction with a detailed combinatorial analysis of a family of cubical complexes, which we call torus front complexes. As an application of our method, we demonstrate how to collapse each connected component of Hom(C_m,C_n) onto a garland of cubes.
In this paper we show that certain universal homology classes which are fundamental in topology are algebraic. To be specific, the products of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces ${\cal K}_{2q} \equiv K({\Bbb Z},2) \times K({\Bbb Z}, 4) \times ... \times K({\Bbb Z}, 2q)$ have models which are limits of complex projective varieties. Precisely, we have ${\cal K}_{2q} = \lim_{d\to\infty}{\cal C}_d^q({\Bbb P}^n)$ where ${\cal C}_d^q({\Bbb P}^n)$ denotes the Chow variety of effective cycles of codimension $q$ and degree $d$ on ${\Bbb P}^n$. It is natural to ask which elements in the homology of ${\cal K}_{2q}…
We give an algorithm to compute the integer cohomology groups of any real partial flag manifold, by computing the incidence coefficients of the Schubert cells. For even flag manifolds we determine the integer cohomology groups, by proving that any torsion class has order 2 (generalizing a result of Ehresmann). We conjecture this to hold for any real flag manifold. We obtain results concerning which Schubert varieties represent integer cohomology classes, their structure constants and how to express them in terms of characteristic classes. For even flag manifolds and Grassmannians we also descr…
We employ the perverse vanishing cycles to show that each reduced cohomology group of the Milnor fiber, except the top two, can be computed from the restriction of the vanishing cycle complex to only singular strata with a certain lower bound in dimension. Guided by geometric results, we alternately use the nearby and vanishing cycle functors to derive information about the Milnor fiber cohomology via iterated slicing by generic hyperplanes. These lead to the description of the reduced cohomology groups, except the top two, in terms of the vanishing cohomology of the nearby section. We use it …
Bott and Taubes used integrals over configuration spaces to produce finite-type a.k.a. Vassiliev knot invariants. Cattaneo, Cotta-Ramusino and Longoni then used these methods together with graph cohomology to construct "Vassiliev classes" in the real cohomology of spaces of knots in higher-dimensional Euclidean spaces, as first promised by Kontsevich. Here we construct integer-valued cohomology classes in spaces of knots and links in Euclidean spaces of dimension greater than three. We construct such a class for any integer-valued graph cocycle, by the method of gluing compactified configurati…
The classical cycle class map for a smooth complex variety sends cycles in the Chow ring to cycles in the singular cohomology ring. We study two cycle class maps for smooth real varieties: the map from the I-cohomology ring to singular cohomology induced by the signature, and a new cycle class map defined on the Chow-Witt ring. For both maps, we establish basic compatibility results like compatibility with pullbacks, pushforwards and cup products. As a first application of these general results, we show that both cycle class maps are isomorphisms for cellular varieties.
In this paper, we provide a conceptual new construction of the algebraic structure on the pair of the Hochschild cohomology spectrum (cochain complex) and Hochschild homology spectrum, which is analogous to the structure of calculus on a manifold. This algebraic structure is encoded by a two-colored operad introduced by Kontsevich and Soibelman. We prove that for a stable idempotent-complete infinity-category, the pair of its Hochschild cohomology and homology spectra naturally admits the structure of algebra over the operad. Moreover, we prove a generalization to the equivariant context.
We discuss an Abel-Jacobi invariant for algebraic cobordism cycles whose image in topological cobordism vanishes. The existence of this invariant follows by abstract arguments from the construction of Hodge filtered cohomology theories in joint work of Michael J. Hopkins and the author. In this paper, we give a concrete description of the new Abel-Jacobi map and Hodge filtered cohomology groups for projective smooth complex varieties.
In recent work (math/0507514) by Etingof, Henriques, Kamnitzer, and the author, a presentation and explicit basis was given for the rational cohomology of the real locus $\bar{M_{0,n}}(\RR)$ of the moduli space of stable genus 0 curves with $n$ marked points. We determine the graded character of the action of $S_n$ on this space (induced by permutations of the marked points), both in the form of a plethystic formula for the cycle index, and as an explicit product formula for the value of the character on a given cycle type.
Let h^{*} be a multiplicative cohomology theory, h_{*} its dual homology theory and \hat{h}^{*} a differential refinement. We first construct the natural pairing between h_{*} and the flat part of \hat{h}^{*}, generalizing the holonomy of a flat Deligne cohomology class. Then, in order to generalize the holonomy of any Deligne cohomology class, we define the generalized Cheeger-Simons characters. The latter are functions from suitably defined differential cycles to the cohomology ring of the point, such that the value on a trivial cycle only depends on the curvature.