2,662 research outputs found
Higher dimensional abelian Chern-Simons theories and their link invariants
The role played by Deligne-Beilinson cohomology in establishing the relation
between Chern-Simons theory and link invariants in dimensions higher than three
is investigated. Deligne-Beilinson cohomology classes provide a natural abelian
Chern-Simons action, non trivial only in dimensions , whose parameter
is quantized. The generalized Wilson -loops are observables of the
theory and their charges are quantized. The Chern-Simons action is then used to
compute invariants for links of -loops, first on closed
-manifolds through a novel geometric computation, then on
through an unconventional field theoretic computation.Comment: 40 page
Combinatorics of embeddings
We offer the following explanation of the statement of the Kuratowski graph
planarity criterion and of 6/7 of the statement of the Robertson-Seymour-Thomas
intrinsic linking criterion. Let us call a cell complex 'dichotomial' if to
every cell there corresponds a unique cell with the complementary set of
vertices. Then every dichotomial cell complex is PL homeomorphic to a sphere;
there exist precisely two 3-dimensional dichotomial cell complexes, and their
1-skeleta are K_5 and K_{3,3}; and precisely six 4-dimensional ones, and their
1-skeleta all but one graphs of the Petersen family.
In higher dimensions n>2, we observe that in order to characterize those
compact n-polyhedra that embed in S^{2n} in terms of finitely many "prohibited
minors", it suffices to establish finiteness of the list of all (n-1)-connected
n-dimensional finite cell complexes that do not embed in S^{2n} yet all their
proper subcomplexes and proper cell-like combinatorial quotients embed there.
Our main result is that this list contains the n-skeleta of (2n+1)-dimensional
dichotomial cell complexes. The 2-skeleta of 5-dimensional dichotomial cell
complexes include (apart from the three joins of the i-skeleta of
(2i+2)-simplices) at least ten non-simplicial complexes.Comment: 49 pages, 1 figure. Minor improvements in v2 (subsection 4.C on
transforms of dichotomial spheres reworked to include more details;
subsection 2.D "Algorithmic issues" added, etc
Convex Analysis and Optimization with Submodular Functions: a Tutorial
Set-functions appear in many areas of computer science and applied
mathematics, such as machine learning, computer vision, operations research or
electrical networks. Among these set-functions, submodular functions play an
important role, similar to convex functions on vector spaces. In this tutorial,
the theory of submodular functions is presented, in a self-contained way, with
all results shown from first principles. A good knowledge of convex analysis is
assumed
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