Quantum anomalies and cocycles on gauge groups (Q1073401)

Let M be a smooth manifold, G a Lie group, P a principal G-bundle, and Aut P the group of automorphisms of P. The authors first construct a series of cocycles and cochains on Aut P, and show how to transform the cochains into cocycles modulo exact forms, then they turn to consider cocycles on the Lie algebras aut P of infinitesimal automorphisms, one of the cocycles they define in this case generalizes the cocycles of Maurer- Cartan and Virasoro. Again under the assumption that the bundle P is trivial the authors construct cocycles on the group \(G^ M\) of smooth functions on M with values in G. The cocycles obtained above are remarkably local in some sense. To illustrate the method the authors give in the last section simple cocycles connected with the second Chern class of the bundle.