Higher holonomies: comparing two constructions (Q2348078)

The notion of the parallel transport for a connection on a fiber bundle can be extended to higher connections in the framework of the higher gauge theory and the higher category theory, the motivation for that comes from theoretical physics. The authors of the paper compare two approaches to such extensions. The first approach by \textit{J. Baez} and \textit{U. Schreiber} [``Higher gauge theory: 2-connections on 2-bundles'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:hep-th/0412325}] allows to define a parallel transport for flat 2-connections with values in crossed modules, namely, there is a map \[ \mathsf{Hol}:\mathsf{Flat}(M,\mathsf{g})\to\mathsf{Rep}(\pi_{\leq2}(M),\mathsf{G}) \] from the set of flat 2-connections on a smooth manifold \(M\) with values in a differential crossed module \(\mathsf{g}\) to the set of representations of the fundamental 2-groupoid of the manifold \(M\) in the Lie crossed module \(\mathsf{G}\) with the infinitesimal counterpart \(\mathsf{g}\). Another approach is related to the parallel transport of flat superconnections (in this context by a superconnection, a grading preserving connection on a \(\mathbb{Z}\)-graded vector bundle is understood) introduced by \textit{K. Igusa} [``Iterated integrals of superconnections'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:0912.0249}], this approach provides an integration \(\mathsf{A}_\infty\)-functor \[ \int:\mathsf{Rep}_\infty(TM)\to\mathsf{Rep}_\infty(\pi_{\infty}(M)) \] that associates to any flat superconnection on a manifold \(M\) an \(\infty\)-representation of the \(\infty\)-groupoid of \(M\). The authors of the paper describe both approaches in detail. Then, they construct the diagram \[ \begin{tikzcd} \mathsf{Rep}_\infty(TM,V) \ar[r, "\int"] \ar[d, "{\mathsf{T}_{\leq 2}}" '] & \mathsf{Rep}_\infty(\pi_{\infty}(M),V) \ar[d, "{\mathsf{T}_{\leq 2}}"]\\ \mathsf{Flat}(M,\mathsf{gl}(V)) & \mathsf{Rep}(\pi_{\leq2}(M),\mathsf{GL}(V)) \end{tikzcd} \] obtained for a flat superconnection over \(M\) with values in a finite-dimensional complex \(V\), here the map \(\int\) is the restriction of the above integral \(\int\), \(\mathsf{GL}(V)\) is the Lie crossed groupoid associated with \(V\), \(\mathsf{gl}(V)\) is its infinitesimal counterpart, and \(\mathsf{T}_{\leq 2}\) are certain truncations. Finally, the authors conjecture that there should be a more categorical version of the obtained diagram with the arrows being functors.