group cohomology, nonabelian group cohomology, Lie group cohomology
cohomology with constant coefficients / with a local system of coefficients
differential cohomology
The notion of twisting functions is an explicit simplicial formula for a cocycle with values in a simplicial group. The twisted product induced from the twisting function is an explicit simplicial formula for a simplicial principal bundle, a model for a discrete principal ∞-bundle classified by this cocycle.
In a fibre bundle or more generally in a fibration, the fibre ‘twists’ as one goes around a loop in the base space, (the standard simple example is the Möbius band). Such fibre bundles are usually restricted to being ‘locally trivial’, that is locally a product of an open set in the base with the fibre.
In the setting of simplicial homotopy theory, one can attempt to construct analogues of fibre bundles by starting with a base simplicial set and a fibre and trying to ‘deform’ the simplicial product to get some non-trivial fibred object. In the Cartan seminars of the period 1956–57 (numdam), (about pages 1–10), a neat solution was described: by leaving all but one of the face maps of the product alone, and deforming the last. The result is a “twisted cartesian product” (see below). The deformation required a simplicial automorphism of the fibre of course, and the resulting twisting function went from the base to the automorphisms of , completely mirroring the topological example. The simplicial identities force the twisting function to obey certain equations.
Let be a simplicial set and a simplicial group. Then a twisting function is a family of maps such that
Given a simplicial set with left -action, one then defines a twisted Cartesian product, (TCP), with and
Thus the only difference from the usual Cartesian product of simplicial sets is in .
A twisting function corresponds exactly to a simplicial map from to delooping of the simplicial group. There is a universal twisting function . See simplicial principal bundle for more.
By the adjunction between -bar and the Dwyer-Kan loop groupoid functor, a twisting function also corresponds to a morphism of simplicial groupoids .
Twisting functions are the analogue of twisting cochains in the context of simplicial sets; but twisting cochains were introduced by Brown 1959, whilst twisting functions were discussed already in Cartan 1956.
Henri Cartan, Sur la théorie de Kan, Séminaire Henri Cartan 9 (1956-1957) talk no. 1 [numdam:SHC_1956-1957__9__A1_0]
Edgar H. Brown Jr. Twisted tensor products. I. Ann. of Math. 69 2 (1959) 223-246 [doi:10.2307/1970101, jstor:1970101]
Michael G. Barratt, Victor K.A.M. Gugenheim, John C. Moore, On semisimplicial fibre-bundles, Amer. J. Math. 81 (1959) 639-657 [doi:10.2307/2372920, jstor:2372920, MR0111028]
The link between Kan fibrations and simplicial fibre bundles, and thus TCPs is neatly summarised in:
Review:
Last revised on November 28, 2023 at 15:20:07. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.