Sheaf theory for stacks in manifolds and twisted cohomology for \(S^1\)-gerbes (Q2464779)

The main goal of this paper is to give a functorial definition of twisted de Rham cohomology. Twisted cohomology is the target of the Chern character from twisted \(K\)-theory, but whereas twisted K-theory is fully functorial, the usual definition of twisted cohomology is not. For this purpose, the authors develop a sheaf theory on smooth stacks. To a principal bundle they associate a stack, and their proposed definition of twisted cohomology is as the cohomology of this stack. They then show that their definition is non-canonically isomorphic to the usual twisted cohomology. The technical core is developing a theory for smooth stacks, and in particular associating an adjoint pair \((f^*,f_*)\) of functors between presheaf categories to a morphism of smooth stacks \(f\colon G\to X\). When \(X\) is a manifold, they prove that the calculation of the right derived functor \(Rf_*\) (appearing in their definition of twisted cohomology) can be reduced to ordinary sheaf theory on manifolds. This is then applied to the case where \(G\to X\) is a gerbe with band \(U(1)\) with a connection. The comparison between the sheaf theoretic definition of the cohomology of \(G\) and the twisted de Rham cohomology depends on the choice of the connection.