nLab universal characteristic class

Idea

The characteristic classes of universal principal ∞-bundles are called universal characteristic classes. Every other characteristic class arises by pullback from a universal characteristic class.

See characteristic class for more.

Related concepts

• cohomology operation

• universal Chern-Simons n-bundle

extended prequantum field theory

$0 \leq k \leq n$	(off-shell) prequantum (n-k)-bundle	traditional terminology
$0$	differential universal characteristic map	level
$1$	prequantum (n-1)-bundle	WZW bundle (n-2)-gerbe
$k$	prequantum (n-k)-bundle
$n-1$	prequantum 1-bundle	(off-shell) prequantum bundle
$n$	prequantum 0-bundle	action functional

References

Textbook accounts include

• Stanley Kochman, section 2.3 of Bordism, Stable Homotopy and Adams Spectral Sequences, AMS 1996