vector bundle, 2-vector bundle, (∞,1)-vector bundle
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∞-Lie theory (higher geometry)
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Chern-Weil theory studies the refinement of characteristic classes of principal bundles in ordinary cohomology to de Rham cohomology and further to ordinary differential cohomology.
The central operation that models this refinement is the construction of the Chern-Weil homomorphism from -principal bundles to de Rham cohomology by choosing a connection and evaluating its curvature form in the invariant polynomials of the Lie algebra to produce the curvature characteristic form . Its de Rham cohomology class refines a corresponding characteristic class in integral cohomology.
Concretely, the Chern-Weil homomorphism is presented by the following construction:
For
Top the classifying space of (the topological group underlying) a compact Lie group
and a class in its integral cohomology – which we may call a characteristic class for -principal bundles
we get for each smooth manifold an assignment
on integral cohomology classes of base space to equivalence classes of -principal bundles by sending a bundle classified by a map to the class .
Let be the image of in real cohomology, induced by the evident inclusion of coefficients .
The first main statement of Chern-Weil theory is that there is an invariant polynomial
on the Lie algebra of associated to , given by an isomorphism (of real graded vector space)s
The second main statement is that this invariant polynomial serves to provide a differential (Lie integration) construction of :
for any choice of connection on a -principal bundle we have the curvature 2-form and fed into the invariant polynomial this yields an -form
The statement is that under the de Rham theorem-isomorphism this presents the class .
The third main statement, says that this construction may be refined by combining integral cohomology and de Rham cohomology to ordinary differential cohomology: the -form may be realized itself as the curvature -form of a circle n-bundle with connection .
In summary this yields the following picture:
A central implication of the last step is that with the refinement from curvatures in de Rham cohomology to circle n-bundles with connection in differential cohomology is that these come with a notion of higher parallel transport and higher holonomy:
the local connection form of is the Chern-Simons form of a Chern-Simons element of the invariant polynomial evaluated on the given -connection;
the corresponding higher parallel transport as an assignment
of -dimensional manifolds in to the circle group is the action functional of the corresponding Chern-Simons theory.
Specifically
for the Killing form invariant polynomial on a semisimple Lie algebra, one calls the Chern-Simons circle 3-bundle; whose higher holonomy is the action functional of ordinary Chern-Simons theory;
for the next higher invariant polynomial on a semisimple Lie algebra, is a Chern-Simons circle 7-bundle, and so on.
So the refined Chern-Weil homomorphism provides a large family of gauge quantum field theories of Chern-Simons type in odd dimensions whose field configurations are always connections on principal bundles and whose Lagrangians are [Chern-Simons element]]s on a Lie algebra.
But the notion of invariant polynomials and Chern-Simons elements naturally exists much more generally for L-∞ algebras, and even more generally for L-∞ algebroids. We claim here that in this fully general case there is still a natural analog of the Chern-Weil homomorphism – which we call the ∞-Chern-Weil homomorphism . Accordingly this gives rise to a wide class of action functionals for gauge quantum field theories, which may be called ∞-Chern-Simons theories.
The notions of Lie group, Lie algebra, principal bundle and all the other ingredients of ordinary Chern-Weil theory generalize to notions in higher category theory such as ∞-Lie group, ∞-Lie algebra, principal ∞-bundle etc. The generalization of Chern-Weil theory to this context is discussed at
There is a noncommutative analogue discussed in (AlekseevMeinrenken2000).
(following notes provided by Jim Stasheff)
The beginnings of the rational homotopy theory of Lie groups and hence their dg-algebra-description in terms of the Chevalley-Eilenberg algebra originate in the first half of the 20th century.
In his survey of what was known in 1936 on the homology of compact Lie groups
Eli Cartan, La topologie des espaces représentatifs des groupes de Lie Act. Sci. Ind., No. 358, Hermann, Paris, (1936).
reprinted in Cartan’s Complete Works vol pp. 1307-1330
E. Cartan conjectured that there should be a general result implying that the homology of the classical Lie groups is the same as the homology of a product of odd-dimensional spheres. In particular, he lists the Poincare polynomial?s for classical simple compact Lie groups.
In
Hopf showed that such a characterization in terms of homology groups as intersection pairing algebras holds for any compact finite dimensional connected orientable manifold with a map such that left and right translation have non-zero degrees.
Later in
with the development of cohomology, especially de Rham cohomology, this was stated as being isomorphic to an exterior algebra on odd dimensional generators: the generating Lie algebra cohomology cocycles , .
Henri Cartan in
Henri Cartan, Notions d’algébre différentielle; applications aux groupes de Lie et aux variétés où opère un groupe de Lie , Coll. Topologie Algébrique Bruxelles (1950)
15-28
section 7, titled Classes caracteristiques (reelles) d’un espace fibre principal
at the end (1951) of an era of deRham cohomology dominence (prior to Serre’s thesis) abstracted the differential geometric approach of Chern-Weil and the Weil algebra to the dg-algebra context with his notion of -algebras . This involves what is known sometimes as the Cartan calculus. In addition to the differential of differential forms on a principal bundle, Cartan abstracts the inner product aka contraction of differential forms with vector fields and the Lie derivative with respect to vector fields. that is, he posits 3 operators on a differential-graded-commutative alggebra (dgca):
of degree 1, of degree -1 and of degree 0 for X in subject to the relations:
and perhaps most useful
This is what he terms a -algebra.
For Cartan, an infinitesimal connection on a principal bundle are projectors (at each point of ) equivariant with repect to the -action. This can be abstracted to a morphism
of graded vector spaces of degree 1 – equivalently a Lie-algebra valued 1-form – such that the two Ehresmann conditions hold:
restricted to the fibers the 1-form is the Maurer-Cartan form
the form is equivariant in that
for all and . This data Cartan calls an algebraic connection .
He then extends such an to a homomorphism of graded algebras
from the Chevalley-Eilenberg algebra .
In general, this will not respect the differentials, hence not be a morphism of dg-algebras. In fact, the deviation gives the curvature of the connection: the curvature tensor is the map .
Jim: HAVE TO BREAK OFF NOW - WHAT WILL COME NEXT IS the Weil algebra as a Cartan -algebra
The differential-geometric Chern-Weil homomorphism (evaluating curvature 2-forms of connections in invariant polynomials) first appears in print (Cartan's map) in:
Henri Cartan, Section 7 of: Cohomologie réelle d’un espace fibré principal différentiable. I : notions d’algèbre différentielle, algèbre de Weil d’un groupe de Lie, Séminaire Henri Cartan, Volume 2 (1949-1950), Talk no. 19, May 1950 (numdam:SHC_1949-1950__2__A18_0)
Henri Cartan, Section 7 of: Notions d’algèbre différentielle; applications aux groupes de Lie et aux variétés où opère un groupe de Lie, in: Centre Belge de Recherches Mathématiques, Colloque de Topologie (Espaces Fibrés) Tenu à Bruxelles du 5 au 8 juin 1950, Georges Thon 1951 (GoogleBooks, pdf)
reprinted in the appendix of:
(These two articles have the same content, with the same section outline, but not the same wording. The first one is a tad more detailed. The second one briefly attributes the construction to Weil, without reference.)
and around equation (10) of:
It is the independence of this construction under the choice of connection which Chern 50 attributes (below equation 10) to the unpublished
The proof is later recorded, in print, in: Chern 51, III.4, Kobayashi-Nomizu 63, XII, Thm 1.1.
But the main result of Chern 50 (later called the fundamental theorem in Chern 51, XII.6) is that this differential-geometric “Chern-Weil” construction is equivalent to the topological (homotopy theoretic) construction of pulling back the universal characteristic classes from the classifying space along the classifying map of the given principal bundle.
This fundamental theorem is equation (15) in Chern 50 (equation 31 in Chern 51), using (quoting from the same page):
methods initiated by E. Cartan and recently developed with success by H. Cartan, Chevalley, Koszul, Leray, and Weil [13]
Here reference 13 is:
More in detail, Chern’s proof of the fundamental theorem (Chern 50, (15), Chern 51, III (31)) uses:
the fact that invariant polynomials constitute the real cohomology of the classifying space, , which is later expanded on in:
Raoul Bott, On the Chern-Weil homomorphism and the continuous cohomology of Lie-groups, Advances in Mathematics Volume 11, Issue 3, December 1973, Pages 289-303 (doi:10.1016/0001-8708(73)90012-1)
Some authors later call this the “abstract Chern-Weil isomorphism”.
existence of universal connections for manifolds in bounded dimension (see here), which is later developed in:
Mudumbai Narasimhan, Sundararaman Ramanan, Existence of Universal Connections, American Journal of Mathematics Vol. 83, No. 3 (Jul., 1961), pp. 563-572 (jstor:2372896)
Mudumbai Narasimhan, Sundararaman Ramanan, Existence of Universal Connections II, American Journal of Mathematics Vol. 85, No. 2 (Apr., 1963), pp. 223-231 (jstor:2373211)
Roger Schlafly, Universal connections, Invent Math 59, 59–65 (1980) (doi:10.1007/BF01390314)
Roger Schlafly, Universal connections: the local problem, Pacific J. Math. Volume 98, Number 1 (1982), 157-171 (euclid:pjm/1102734394)
Review of the Chern-Weil homomorphism:
Shiing-Shen Chern, Chapter III of: Topics in Differential Geometry, Institute for Advanced Study (1951) (pdf)
Shoshichi Kobayashi, Katsumi Nomizu, Chapter XII in: Foundations of Differential Geometry, Volume 1, Wiley 1963 (web, ISBN:9780471157335, Wikipedia)
Shiing-Shen Chern, James Simons, Section 2 of: Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants, Annals of Mathematics Second Series, Vol. 99, No. 1 (Jan., 1974), pp. 48-69 (jstor:1971013)
(in the context of Chern-Simons forms)
John Milnor, Jim Stasheff, Appendix C of: Characteristic classes, Princeton Univ. Press (1974) (ISBN:9780691081229)
Eckhard Meinrenken, Section 5 of: Group actions on manifolds, Lecture Notes 2003 (pdf, pdf)
Mike Hopkins, Isadore Singer, Section 3.3 of: Quadratic Functions in Geometry, Topology,and M-Theory
J. Differential Geom. Volume 70, Number 3 (2005), 329-452 (arXiv:math.AT/0211216, euclid:1143642908)
Domenico Fiorenza, Urs Schreiber, Jim Stasheff, Section 2.1 in: Cech Cocycles for Differential characteristic Classes, Advances in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Volume 16 Issue 1 (2012), pages 149-250 (arXiv:1011.4735, euclid:1358950853, doi:10.1007/BF02104916)
(in generalization to principal ∞-bundles)
Daniel Freed, Michael Hopkins, Chern-Weil forms and abstract homotopy theory, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 50 (2013), 431-468 (arXiv:1301.5959, doi:10.1090/S0273-0979-2013-01415-0)
(using the stacky language of FSS 10)
Adel Rahman, Chern-Weil theory, 2017 (pdf)
With an eye towards applications in mathematical physics:
Mikio Nakahara, Chapter 11.1 of: Geometry, Topology and Physics, IOP 2003 (doi:10.1201/9781315275826, pdf)
Gerd Rudolph, Matthias Schmidt, Chapter 4 of: Differential Geometry and Mathematical Physics Part II. Fibre Bundles, Topology and Gauge Fields, Springer 2017 (doi:10.1007/978-94-024-0959-8)
See also in:
Enhancement of the Chern-Weil homomorphism from ordinary cohomology-groups to dg-categories of -local systems:
More review:
More monographs:
Johan Louis Dupont, Fibre bundles and Chern-Weil theory, Lecture Notes Series 69, Dept. of Math., University of Aarhus, Aarhus, 2003, 115 pp. pdf
Johan Louis Dupont, Curvature and characteristic classes, Lecture Notes in Math. 640, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, 1978.
Mikhail Postnikov, Лекции по геометрии. Семестр 4, Дифференциальная геометрия — М.: Наука, 1988
Raoul Bott, Loring Tu, Differential forms in algebraic topology, Graduate Texts in Mathematics 82, Springer 1982. xiv+331 pp.
Loring Tu, Differential Geometry – Connections, Curvature, and Characteristic Classes, Springer (2017) [ISBN:978-3-319-55082-4]
Victor Guillemin, Shlomo Sternberg, Supersymmetry and equivariant de Rham theory, Springer, 1999.
Lecture notes with an eye on Morse theory in terms of supersymmetric quantum mechanics:
Chern-Weil theory in the context of noncommutative geometry
Last revised on December 10, 2023 at 17:47:37. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.