This entry contains one chapter of geometry of physics.
previous chapters: flat connections, de Rham coefficients
next chapters: prequantum geometry, WZW terms
Dirac charge quantization implies that the electromagnetic field is not just given by a closed differential 2-form but by a refinement of that to a circle group principal connection
analogous arguments show that more generally a configuration of the Yang-Mills field for some gauge group is a -principal connection;
analogous arguments say that the B-field and the C-field are given by circle n-bundles with connection for and , respectively.
In this way all of gauge theory is much the study of principal connections and all of higher gauge theory is much the study of principal infinity-connections.
More is true: also a configuration of the field of gravity is represented by a connection, in this case a Cartan connection, which is a Poincare group-principal connection satisfying an extra condition (that “solders” it to the underlying manifold).
It turns out that one of the many equivalent incarnations of circle n-bundles with connection are cocycles in Deligne cohomology. That this is so we discuss below in the Semantics layer. Here instead we discuss Deligne cohomology taken at face value.
In order to be somewhat self-contained, this section reviews some elements of abelian sheaf cohomology specified to the context that we need. It also sets up some notation. The definition of the Deligne complex itself is below in def. .
Recall the following definition, which is discussed in much detail in the chapter geometry of physics – smooth sets.
Write CartSp for the site whose
objects are Cartesian space for ,
morphisms are smooth functions between these;
whose coverage is given by “differentially good open covers”, those open covers of s all whose finite non-empty intersections are diffeomorphic to an open ball, hence again to .
Write for the category of presheaves over this site. Write
for its category of sheaves, also called the cohesive topos of smooth spaces.
Instead of the site CartSp of def. one could use the site SmoothMfd of all smooth manifolds. All of the statements and constructions in the following go through in that case just as well. In fact CartSp is a dense subsite of SmoothMfd. On the one hand this implies that the abelian sheaf cohomology is the same for both sites, but on the other hand means that it is convenient to restrict to the much “smaller” site of Cartesian spaces. In fact since the stalks of sheaves over smooth manifolds are evaluations on small open balls and since every open ball is diffeomorphic to a Cartesian space, many statements that are true (only) stalkwise over SmoothMfd are actually true globally over . It is the “descent” or “infinity-stackification” which is implicit in abelian sheaf cohomology that takes care of these global statements over CartSp to translate into the same local statements as one gets over SmoothMfd.
The assignment of smooth functions with values in the real numbers is a sheaf. Since this is representable we are entitled to identify this with the smooth manifold (the real line) itself, and just write .
Similarly for any other smooth manifold, it represents a sheaf on CartSp and we just write for this.
Of particular interest below is the case where is the circle, to be regarded as the circle group.
Notice that traditionally the sheaf represented by or is indicated by an underline as in and , but we do not follow this tradition here.
Instead, if we consider the other sheaf that might deserve to be denoted by , namely the constant sheaf on , which sends each to the set underlying , then we write for that. Similarly
is the sheaf sending each test manifold to the set of points in the circle, and each smooth function between Cartesian spaces to the identity function on that set.
For write
for the sheaf of smooth differential k-forms on . The de Rham differential extends to a morphism of sheaves
For positive its kernel is the sub-sheaf
of closed differential forms; and for its kernel is the sub-sheaf of constant functions
In the background, what plays a role for the following is the full cohesive homotopy theory of smooth ∞-groupoids. This receives a map from the following coarse homotopy theory of chain complexes of abelian sheaves, which is all that is necessary for the present purpose.
Write
for the category of chain complexes in the smooth sheaves of def. , hence for the 1-category whose objects are chain complexes of abelian sheaves on .
Regard this as equipped with the structure of a category of fibrant objects induced by the projective model structure on chain complexes, hence with classes of morphisms labeled as follows: a chain map is called
a weak equivalence if it is a quasi-isomorphism, hence if it induces isomorphisms on (sheaves of) chain homology groups;
a fibration if it is an epimorphism (of abelian sheaves) in positive degree.
For our purpose the main use of this structure is to compute homotopy fibers via the factorization lemma. Namely
every chain map may be replaced, up to weak equivalence of its domain, by a fibration;
the homotopy fiber of a chain map is the ordinary fiber of any of its fibration replacements.
That the properties in def. are interpreted in sheaves simply means that they apply stalk-wise. For instance a morphism of chain complexes of presheaves is a weak equivalence precisely if the underlying presheaf of chain complexes becomes a quasi-isomorphism for each point in each Cartesian space after restricting (via the presheaf structure maps) to a small enough open neighbourhood of that point. Similarly for epimorphisms.
There is a canonical map of homotopy theories from to the full (∞,1)-topos Smooth∞Grpd which is given by applying the Dold-Kan correspondence followed by ∞-stackification. The key point is that this map preserves homotopy fiber products, which is the universal construction that already captures most of the relevant properties of the Deligne complex. In this way it is sufficient to concentrate on for much of the theory.
When writing out the components of chain complexes we will use square brackets always denote the group in degree-0 to the far right, and the group in degree being steps to the left from that.
For any abelian sheaf and for we write
for the chain complex of sheaves concentrated on in degree .
There is a weak equivalence, def. ,
given by the chain map
(which is just the exponential sequence regarded as a chain map).
The de Rham differential extends through this equivalence to produce a morphism denoted :
On a given -valued function this is given by representing the function by a smooth -valued function under mod--reduction (which is always possible over a Cartesian space) and applying the de Rham differential to that.
The kernel of that is the constant sheaf of example
Under addition of differential forms, the sheaves of example becomes abelian sheaves, and we will implicitly understand them this way now.
Write for the complex of sheaves given by the truncated de Rham complex:
By the Poincaré lemma. This is the Poincaré Lemma.
Every serves as the coefficients for an abelian sheaf cohomology theory on smooth manifolds. Abelian sheaf cohomology has a general abstract characterization (see at cohomology) in terms of derived hom-spaces. For definiteness, we recall the model for this construction given by Cech cohomology .
(Čech complex)
Let be a smooth manifold and let be a sheaf of chain complexes. Let be a good open cover of , i.e. an open cover such that each finite non-empty intersection is diffeomorphic to an open ball/Cartesian space.
The Čech cochain complex of with respect to the cover and with coefficients in is in degree given by the abelian group
which is the direct sum of the values of on the given intersections as indicated; and whose differential
is defined componentwise (see at matrix calculus for conventions on maps between direct sums) by
where on the right the sum is over all components of obtained via the canonical restrictions obtained by discarding one of the original subscripts.
The Cech cohomology groups of with coefficients in relative to the given cover are the chain homology groups of the Cech complex
The Cech cohomology groups as such are the colimit (“directed limit”) of these groups over refinements of covers
Often Cech cohomology is considered for the case that is concentrated in a single degree, in which case the first term in the sum defining the differential in def. disappears. When is not concentrated in a single degree, then for emphasis one sometimes speaks of hypercohomology. This is the case of relevance for Deligne cohomology.
The Cech chain complex in def. is the total complex of the double complex whose vertical differential is that of and whose horizontal differential is the Cech differential given by alternating sums over restrictions along patch inclusions
For analyzing the properties of Deligne cohomology below, all one needs is the following fact about Cech cohomology, which is discussed for instance at infinity-cohesive site:
For a smooth manifold (in particular paracompact),
admits a good open cover (by charts all whose finite non-empty intersections are diffeomorphic to an open ball/Cartesian space );
for any such good open cover the Cech complex already computes Cech cohomology (i.e. there is no further need to form the colimit of Cech complexes over refinements of covers);
the functor preserves weak equivalences and fibrations.
This means in particular that if is a homotopy fiber sequence in , then also
is a homotopy fiber sequence of chain complexes, and therefore the cohomology groups sit in the long exact sequence in homology of this sequence of chain complexes.
For as in example , then for a smooth manifold
is the ordinary cohomology of with integer coefficients, the cohomology which is also computed as the singular cohomology of the underlying topological space of .
Similarly for then
is the ordinary cohomology of with circle group coefficients, the cohomology which is also computed as the singular cohomology of the underlying topological space of with -coefficients.
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology (e.g. via def. ), then prop. is the de Rham theorem.
We will have need to give names to truncations of the de Rham complex. One is this:
For write
for the chain complex of the form
with all -forms, not just the closed ones, in degree 0.
The abelian sheaf cohomology of the truncated de Rham complex in def. is .
For the smooth Deligne complex of degree
is the chain complex of abelian sheaves given by
with in degree and with the differentials as in def. and example .
We write
for its abelian sheaf cohomology.
By example the obvious chain map
is a weak equivalence, def. , and one could define the top chain complex here as “the” Deligne complex, just as well. In the context of homotopy theory/homological algebra, all that matters is the complex up to zig-zags of weak equivalences.
In def. the de Rham complex is truncated to the right by discarding what would be the next differentials, without passing to their kernel, i.e. in degree 0 the Deligne complex has all differential -forms, not just the closed -fomrs. This simple point is the key aspect of the Deligne complex. If one instead truncates while preserving the chain homology in the lowest degree, then one obtains the following complex with the sheaf of closed forms in lowest degree, which gives ordinary cohomology.
For the flat smooth Deligne complex of degree
is the chain complex of abelian sheaves given by
with in degree and with the differentials as in def. and example , and with the closed -forms on the right.
For as in def. , then the morphism
given by the chain map
(with the vertical morphism on the left being the inclusion of example ) is a weak equivalence, def. .
By the Poincaré lemma, this is just an immediate variant of prop. .
The Cech complex, def. , for Deligne cohomology of degree is the total complex of a double complex of the following form
where vertically we have the de Rham differential and horizontally the Cech differential given by alternating sums of pullback of differential forms.
The corresponding total complex has in degree the direct sum of the entries in this double complex which are on the th nw-se off-diagonal and has the total differential
with denoting form degree.
A Cech-Deligne cocycle in degree (“bundle gerbe with connection”) is data such that
We discuss the construction of two canonical morphisms out of Deligne cohomology, and two canonical morphisms into it. Below these are shown to form two interlocking exact sequences and in fact an exact differential cohomology hexagon which accurately characterizes Deligne cohomology as the differential cohomology extension of integral ordinary cohomology by differential forms.
Throughout, for ease of notation, we assume to be positive,
The remaining case describes “circle 0-bundles with connection”, which are just -valued functions, and is hence essentially trivial in itself.
In the following is any smooth manifold.
for the zig-zag of chain complexes where the left weak equivalence is that of remark , i.e. for the chain maps given by
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology this gives, by def. and example , a morphism
from Deligne cohomology to ordinary cohomology with integer coefficients in degree .
For we call
the Dixmier-Douady class of the underlying circle n-bundle.
Write
for the morphism given by the chain map which is just the de Rham differential in degree 0
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology this gives a morphism of the form
We call this the curvature map, i.e. for the class of a Deligne cocycle, we call
its curvature form.
Consider the zig-zag
out of the complex of def. , given by the chain maps
where the bottom quasi-isomorphism is from remark .
On passing to abelian sheaf cohomology this gives, by example , a morphism
Consider the canonical morphism
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology this induces a morphism
We call this map the inclusion of the flat infinity-connections into all circle n-connections.
Combining what we have so far:
The composite of the morphisms of def. and of the curvature morphism of def.
is given by the de Rham differential on differential forms.
The composite of the morphisms of def. and def. is the Bockstein homomorphism:
By composing the defining zig-zags of chain maps the statement is immediate.
While the explicit definition of the Deligne complex in def. is easy enough, all its good abstract properties are best understood by realizing that it is the homotopy fiber product of a kind of higher abelian Chern character map with the closed differential forms . This is the content of prop. below.
Write
for the morphism given as the composite
where the second morphism is induced by the canonical inclusion .
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology this induces a morphism
The morphism in def. is just the traditional map from ordinary cohomology with integer coefficients to that with real numbers coefficients given for instance via singular cohomology simply by forming the tensor product of abelian groups with . In the broader context of differential cohomology however it is useful to think of this map as the Chern character, whence the notation.
While this is easy enough to construct in itself, the underlying chain map here is not a fibration in the sense of def. (having as non-trivial component the inclusion , which is evidently not an epimorphism). But the homotopy fiber of this map plays a crucial role in the theory, and so in view of remark we consider now a fibration resolution of this map
Consider the chain complex
where we use matrix calculus-notation as for mapping cones (see at mapping cone – Examples – In chain complexes).
Write
for the morphism to the chain complex of def. which is given by the chain map that in positive degree projects onto the lower row in the above direct sum expression and in degree 0 is given by the de Rham differential:
Finally write
for the morphism given by the chain map which in degree is given by
The construction in def. gives a fibration resolution of the Chern character morphism of def. in that it gives a commuting diagram of chain maps
with, on the right, the weak equivalence of prop. , where
the left vertical morphism is a weak equivalence;
the bottom horizontal morphism is a fibration.
That the diagram commutes is a straightforward inspection, unwinding the definitions. That is a fibration according to def. is by its very construction, being a projection in positive degree. That the left morphism is a weak equivalence comes down to the Poincaré lemma, in a slight variant of the simple argument that proves prop. .
Write
for the zig-zag whose right morphism is the weak equivalence of prop. and whose left morphism is given by the chain map
The chain maps
fit into a commuting diagram
which is a pullback diagram in . This exhibits the Deligne complex as the homotopy pullback of the inclusion of along the Chern character map .
The first statement follows straightforwardly by inspection, using that pullbacks of chain complexes are computed componentwise. From this the second statement follows then since by is a fibration resolution of .
Write
for the inclusion of those closed differential forms whose periods (integration over -cycles) takes values in the integers.
The image of the curvature map of def. are the integral forms of def. .
The homotopy pullback characterization of of prop. implies that the image consists of precisely those closed differential forms which under the de Rham theorem, remark , represent real cohomology classes that are in the image of integral cohomology classes. These are the differential forms with integral periods.
(curvature exact sequence)
The Deligne cohomology group fits into a short exact sequence (of abelian groups) of the form
where is the curvature map of def. .
By prop. the morphism on the right is indeed an epimorphism. It remains to determine its kernel.
To that end, consider the pasting diagram of homotopy pullbacks obtained form the homotopy pullback in prop. . Using the pasting law and the fact that the loop space object of a 0-truncated object such as is trivial, this is of the form
Passing to abelian sheaf cohomology and applying the induced long exact sequence in homology, in view of remark , implies the claim.
(characteristic class exact sequence)
The Deligne cohomology group fits into a short exact sequence (of abelian groups) of the form
The chain map that represents the Dixmier-Douady class by def. is manifestly a fibration in the sense of def. . Therefore its ordinary fiber is already its homotopy fiber. That ordinary fiber is evidently the domain of the morphism constructed in def. , in its second weakly equivalent incarnation as displayed there.
Therefore the long exact sequence in homology, induced by the chain map under passage to abelian sheaf cohomology (in view of remark ) goes as
As in the proof of prop. it follows that the rightmost morphism is an epimorphism. Hence we get a short exact sequence by dividing out the image of in . That image is . Since this image contains (as the closed differential forms all whose periods are ) the resulting quotient is and the claim follows.
In words the statement of prop. and prop. is that Deligne cohomology groups constitute a group extension
of integral ordinary cohomology by differential -forms modulo integral forms;
of closed -forms by -valued ordinary cohomology.
The first statement is what gives the name to “differential cohomology” as it makes precise how is a combination of ordinary integral cohomology with differential form-data.
The second statement is secretly of the same flavor, if maybe not as manifestly so: the -valued ordinary cohomology is really what classifies flat circle n-connections on circle n-group principal infinity-bundles (either, depending on perspective, by def. or else, more intrinsically, by the very statement of prop. ) and hence again describes a combination of underlying bundles with differential form data.
Summing up, the homotopy pullback square of prop. together with the maps of prop. form a commuting diagram in of the form.
This extends to a diagram in of the form
such that
both square are homotopy pullback squares;
both diagonals are homotopy fiber sequences;
the two outer sequences are long homotopy fiber sequences.
For the first statement consider the pasting of homotopy pullback diagrams as in the proof of prop. , now extended to the left, via the pasting law, as
That the NE-diagonal is a homotopy fiber sequence is the statement in the proof of prop. . That the SE-diagonal is a homotopy fiber sequence follows by inspection as remarked in the proof of prop. .
From this the last statement now is implied by using the pasting law yet once more, as show in the proof here.
The form of the exact hexagon characterizing the Deligne complex via prop. is in fact a general abstract consequence of the fact that all universal constructions in considered here indeed may be understood as taking place in the cohesive homotopy theory of smooth ∞-groupoids, via remark . This is discussed in detail at differential cohomology hexagon.
We give now a general abstract formulation of principal connections in any cohesive (∞,1)-topos . The structures discussed above turn out to be models for these axioms.
Throughout, let be a braided ∞-group in the given cohesive (∞,1)-topos, write for its delooping and assume that this is precisely n-truncated. Write for the second delooping, given by the braidedness.
Write for the flat modality and recall the homotopy fiber sequence of its counit
where is the Maurer-Cartan form of the group . This will appear as the curvature characteristic form for -principal ∞-bundles now.
A -Hodge filtration is a choice of filtration of (using the flat modality) such that the first stage is equivalent to the canonical morphism .
For the st stage of the filtration we write
Consider Smooth∞Grpd and for consider the circle n-group. Then (as in prop. )
where on the right we have the image of the truncated de Rham complex/flat smooth Deligne complex, def. , under the Dold-Kan correspondence followed by ∞-stackification .
The traditional Hodge filtration provides a filtration on this, in the general abstract sense of def. , whence the terminology.
Given a -Hodge filtration, def. , write for the induced cofiltration given by homotopy pullback of the Maurer-Cartan form along the Hodge filtration, i.e. the left sequence in the following pasting diagram of homotopy pullbacks
We say that here is the coefficient object for -differential cohomology (with the given choice of Hodge filtration understood).
With the choices as in example , then the general abstract def. of -differential coefficient object is represented by the smooth Deligne complex, def. :
where denotes the Dold-Kan correspondence followed by ∞-stackification.
under construction
The universal curvature characteristic, def. , has the syntax
Regarded as a dependent type in the de Rham coefficient context this is
Therefore the syntax for a domain object in this context is
in differential cohomology, def. , on is hence
Last revised on June 27, 2019 at 12:26:41. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.