5,656 research outputs found
The order of curvature operators on loop groups
For loop groups (free and based), we compute the exact order of the curvature
operator of the Levi-Civita connection depending on a Sobolev space parameter.
This extends results of Freed and Maeda-Rosenberg-Torres.Comment: to appear in Letters in Mathematical Physic
A Large k Asymptotics of Witten's Invariant of Seifert Manifolds
We calculate a large asymptotic expansion of the exact surgery formula
for Witten's invariant of Seifert manifolds. The contributions of all
flat connections are identified. An agreement with the 1-loop formula is
checked. A contribution of the irreducible connections appears to contain only
a finite number of terms in the asymptotic series. A 2-loop correction to the
contribution of the trivial connection is found to be proportional to Casson's
invariant.Comment: 51 pages (Some changes are made to the Discussion section. A surgery
formula for perturbative corrections to the contribution of the trivial
connection is suggested.
Global Spinors and Orientable Five-Branes
Fermion fields on an M-theory five-brane carry a representation of the double
cover of the structure group of the normal bundle. It is shown that, on an
arbitrary oriented Lorentzian six-manifold, there is always an Sp(2) twist that
allows such spinors to be defined globally. The vanishing of the arising
potential obstructions does not depend on spin structure in the bulk, nor does
the six-manifold need to be spin or spin-C. Lifting the tangent bundle to such
a generalised spin bundle requires picking a generalised spin structure in
terms of certain elements in the integral and modulo-two cohomology of the
five-brane world-volume in degrees four and five, respectively.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX; v2: version to appear in JHE
M-theory and Characteristic Classes
In this note we show that the Chern-Simons and the one-loop terms in the
M-theory action can be written in terms of new characters involving the
M-theory four-form and the string classes. This sheds a new light on the
topological structure behind M-theory and suggests the construction of a theory
of `higher' characteristic classes.Comment: 8 pages. Error in gravitational term fixed; minor corrections;
reference and acknowledgement adde
Residue Formulas for the Large k Asymptotics of Witten's Invariants of Seifert Manifolds. The Case of SU(2)
We derive the large k asymptotics of the surgery formula for SU(2) Witten's
invariants of general Seifert manifolds. The contributions of connected
components of the moduli space of flat connections are identified. The
contributions of irreducible connections are presented in a residue form. This
form is similar to the one used by A. Szenes, L. Jeffrey and F. Kirwan. This
similarity allows us to express the contributions of irreducible connections in
terms of intersection numbers on their moduli spaces.Comment: 39 pages, no figures, LaTe
D3 branes in a Melvin universe: a new realm for gravitational holography
The decoupling limit of a certain configuration of D3 branes in a Melvin
universe defines a sector of string theory known as Puff Field Theory (PFT) - a
theory with non-local dynamics but without gravity. In this work, we present a
systematic analysis of the non-local states of strongly coupled PFT using
gravitational holography. And we are led to a remarkable new holographic
dictionary. We show that the theory admits states that may be viewed as brane
protrusions from the D3 brane worldvolume. The footprint of a protrusion has
finite size - the scale of non-locality in the PFT - and corresponds to an
operator insertion in the PFT. We compute correlators of these states, and we
demonstrate that only part of the holographic bulk is explored by this
computation. We then show that the remaining space holographically encodes the
dynamics of the D3 brane tentacles. The two sectors are coupled: in this
holographic description, this is realized via quantum entanglement across a
holographic screen - a throat in the geometry - that splits the bulk into the
two regions in question. We then propose a description of PFT through a direct
product of two Fock spaces - akin to other non-local settings that employ
quantum group structures.Comment: 44 pages, 13 figures; v2: minor corrections, citations added; v3:
typos corrected in section on local operators, some asymptotic expansions
improved and made more consistent with rest of paper in section on non-local
operator
T-duality and Differential K-Theory
We give a precise formulation of T-duality for Ramond-Ramond fields. This
gives a canonical isomorphism between the "geometrically invariant" subgroups
of the twisted differential K-theory of certain principal torus bundles. Our
result combines topological T-duality with the Buscher rules found in physics.Comment: 23 pages, typos corrected, submitted to Comm.Math.Phy
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