34 research outputs found
An Invitation to Higher Gauge Theory
In this easy introduction to higher gauge theory, we describe parallel
transport for particles and strings in terms of 2-connections on 2-bundles.
Just as ordinary gauge theory involves a gauge group, this generalization
involves a gauge '2-group'. We focus on 6 examples. First, every abelian Lie
group gives a Lie 2-group; the case of U(1) yields the theory of U(1) gerbes,
which play an important role in string theory and multisymplectic geometry.
Second, every group representation gives a Lie 2-group; the representation of
the Lorentz group on 4d Minkowski spacetime gives the Poincar\'e 2-group, which
leads to a spin foam model for Minkowski spacetime. Third, taking the adjoint
representation of any Lie group on its own Lie algebra gives a 'tangent
2-group', which serves as a gauge 2-group in 4d BF theory, which has
topological gravity as a special case. Fourth, every Lie group has an 'inner
automorphism 2-group', which serves as the gauge group in 4d BF theory with
cosmological constant term. Fifth, every Lie group has an 'automorphism
2-group', which plays an important role in the theory of nonabelian gerbes. And
sixth, every compact simple Lie group gives a 'string 2-group'. We also touch
upon higher structures such as the 'gravity 3-group' and the Lie 3-superalgebra
that governs 11-dimensional supergravity.Comment: 60 pages, based on lectures at the 2nd School and Workshop on Quantum
Gravity and Quantum Geometry at the 2009 Corfu Summer Institut
Graph products of spheres, associative graded algebras and Hilbert series
Given a finite, simple, vertex-weighted graph, we construct a graded
associative (non-commutative) algebra, whose generators correspond to vertices
and whose ideal of relations has generators that are graded commutators
corresponding to edges. We show that the Hilbert series of this algebra is the
inverse of the clique polynomial of the graph. Using this result it easy to
recognize if the ideal is inert, from which strong results on the algebra
follow. Non-commutative Grobner bases play an important role in our proof.
There is an interesting application to toric topology. This algebra arises
naturally from a partial product of spheres, which is a special case of a
generalized moment-angle complex. We apply our result to the loop-space
homology of this space.Comment: 19 pages, v3: elaborated on connections to related work, added more
citations, to appear in Mathematische Zeitschrif
Convex domains of Finsler and Riemannian manifolds
A detailed study of the notions of convexity for a hypersurface in a Finsler
manifold is carried out. In particular, the infinitesimal and local notions of
convexity are shown to be equivalent. Our approach differs from Bishop's one in
his classical result (Bishop, Indiana Univ Math J 24:169-172, 1974) for the
Riemannian case. Ours not only can be extended to the Finsler setting but it
also reduces the typical requirements of differentiability for the metric and
it yields consequences on the multiplicity of connecting geodesics in the
convex domain defined by the hypersurface.Comment: 22 pages, AMSLaTex. Typos corrected, references update
Braided Matrix Structure of the Sklyanin Algebra and of the Quantum Lorentz Group
Braided groups and braided matrices are novel algebraic structures living in
braided or quasitensor categories. As such they are a generalization of
super-groups and super-matrices to the case of braid statistics. Here we
construct braided group versions of the standard quantum groups . They
have the same FRT generators but a matrix braided-coproduct \und\Delta
L=L\und\tens L where , and are self-dual. As an application, the
degenerate Sklyanin algebra is shown to be isomorphic to the braided matrices
; it is a braided-commutative bialgebra in a braided category. As a
second application, we show that the quantum double D(\usl) (also known as
the `quantum Lorentz group') is the semidirect product as an algebra of two
copies of \usl, and also a semidirect product as a coalgebra if we use braid
statistics. We find various results of this type for the doubles of general
quantum groups and their semi-classical limits as doubles of the Lie algebras
of Poisson Lie groups.Comment: 45 pages. Revised (= much expanded introduction
Representations of the Weyl Algebra in Quantum Geometry
The Weyl algebra A of continuous functions and exponentiated fluxes,
introduced by Ashtekar, Lewandowski and others, in quantum geometry is studied.
It is shown that, in the piecewise analytic category, every regular
representation of A having a cyclic and diffeomorphism invariant vector, is
already unitarily equivalent to the fundamental representation. Additional
assumptions concern the dimension of the underlying analytic manifold (at least
three), the finite wide triangulizability of surfaces in it to be used for the
fluxes and the naturality of the action of diffeomorphisms -- but neither any
domain properties of the represented Weyl operators nor the requirement that
the diffeomorphisms act by pull-backs. For this, the general behaviour of
C*-algebras generated by continuous functions and pull-backs of homeomorphisms,
as well as the properties of stratified analytic diffeomorphisms are studied.
Additionally, the paper includes also a short and direct proof of the
irreducibility of A.Comment: 71 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX. Changes v2 to v3: previous results
unchanged; some addings: inclusion of gauge transforms, several comments,
Subsects. 1.5, 3.7, 3.8; comparison with LOST paper moved to Introduction;
Def. 2.5 modified; some typos corrected; Refs. updated. Article now as
accepted by Commun. Math. Phy
Whitehead Problems for Words in
We solve the Whitehead problem for automorphisms, monomorphisms and endomorphisms in Zm Fn after giving an explicit description of each of these families of transformations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft