Contents
Context
Higher algebra
Higher geometry
Contents
Idea
The concept of derived critical locus is the refinement of the notion of critical locus from geometry to derived geometry.
The formal duals to derived critical loci are described by BV-BRST formalism.
Details
The following is a basic setup in dg-geometry aimed at exhibiting the (formal dual of) the BV-BRST complex as the derived critical locus of (the formal dual of) the BRST complex (the example below)
Basic dg-geometry
Let be a field of characteristic zero.
Write for the category of unbounded cochain differential graded-commutative algebras (dgc-algebras) over .
An object in the opposite category
we may regard as an affine space in dg-geometry, and hence we write
for the corresponding dgc-algebra.
Let Mod be the category of dg-modules over equipped with the standard model structure on dg-modules.
Definition
(dgc-algebras over )
Write
for the category of commutative monoids in -modules, equivalently the coslice category of under .
Proposition
There is a model category structure on (def. ) whose fibrations and weak equivalences are those of the underlying -modules such that the free-forgetful adjunction
is a Quillen adjunction.
This is
-
combinatorial;
-
proper.
Proof
This follows with the general discussion at dg-geometry. We indicate how to see it directly.
We observe that the adjunction exhibits the transferred model structure on the left. By the statement discussed there, it is sufficient to check that
-
is a cofibrantly generated model category.
This follows because the model structure on dg-modules (as discussed there) is itself transferred along
from the cofibrantly generated model structure on cochain complexes.
-
preserves filtered colimits.
This follows from the general fact creates filtered colimits for closed symmetric monoidal (see there) and that is closed symmetric monoidal (see there).
To check this explicitly:
Let be a filtered diagram. We claim that there is a unique way to lift the underlying colimit to a dg-algebra cocone: for and there is by the assumption that is filtered a . Therefore in order for the cocone component to be an algebra homomorphism the product of with in has to be the image of this product in . This defines the colimiting cocone .
-
The left hand has functorial fibrant replacement (this is trivial, since every object is fibrant) and functorial path objects.
This follows by the same argument as for the path object in (here) this can be taken to be .
Given as above we want to consider its formal cotangent bundle , i.e. the infinitesimal neighbourhood around the zero section of the would-be actual cotangent bundle
Definition
Write
for the automorphism ∞-Lie algebra of whose underlying cochain complex is
where is the module of derivations
of degree and is the graded commutator of derivations with the differential of regarded as a degree 1 derivation .
We say that is smooth if is cofibrant as an object on .
Write
for the free -algebra over .
We write
for its formal dual.
Every defines a morphism
in which is dually given by
where is the -linear multiplication operator defined by and where for we set
which may be regarded as the multiplication operator given by the commutator of -linear endomorphisms of as indicated.
Derived critical locus
Proposition
(presentation by free dgc-algebra on mapping cone)
If is smooth in the sense that is cofibrant, then the derived critical locus (def. ) is presented by
where on the right we have the free -algebra over the mapping cone of with extension of scalars along .
Proof
Using the pasting law we may decompose the homotopy pullback into a pasting of two homotopy pullback squares as follows:
First consider the square on the right:
By prop the functor is left Quillen. Hence if is cofibrant in then the homotopy pushout corresponding to the square on the right may be computed as the image under of the homotopy pushout in .
By the disucssion at model structure on dg-modules, for these the homotopy cofibers are given by the ordinary mapping cone construction for chain complexes.
More in detail, write
for the mapping cone on the identity:
Then the mapping cone is
(1)
If we extend the graded commutators in the evident way we may write the differential in as
Here the second term will be the differential of the BRST-complex of , whereas the sum is of the type of a differential in a BRST-BV complex.
For that to happen, however the two copies of in need to be identified, this is achived by the remaining homotopy pushout corresponding to the square on the left
Since here the morphism on the right is the pushout of a cofibration, it is itself still a cofibration, and by assumption is cofibrant. Therefore this homotopy pushout is given by the ordinary pushout, and that yields the tensor product as in the claim.
BV-BRST complex
Traditionally the BV-BRST complex of a Lagrangian field theory is obtained by
-
choosing a Koszul-Tate complex resolving the shell;
-
choosing a BRST complex exhibiting the gauge invariance
-
appealing to homological perturbation theory, for extending the sum of the two differentials to a unified BV-BRST differential
(e.g. Henneaux 90. around (50))
Vie the concept of the derived critical locus this process is systematized: Given just and the Lagrangian, both and “more” follows (if does capture all the relevant gauge symmetries, that is) and the appearance of the antibracket finds its conceptual explanation.
Let be a Lie algebroid over a space , with Chevalley-Eilenberg algebra
with differential given by
for functions , infinitesimal gauge symmetries , gauge symmetry structure functions and ghost generators .
The “algebra of vector fields/derivations” on is the automorphism ∞-Lie algebra whose underlying cochain complex is
We check on generators that
and
Now let
be a morphism, dually a dgc-algebra homomorphism of the form
This is equivalently a function
which is gauge invariant
We have a contraction homomorphism of -modules
and may form its mapping cone (1)
On the free algebra of this
we have the differential given on generators by
and similarly after tensoring in order to identify the extra copy of with the base .
If is the full kernel of and there are no further relations, then this is the full BRST-BV complex of .
References
The above material is adapted from
(taking into account a correction provided by Vincent Schlegel)
aimed at providing proof for the claim in
See also