Continuous cohomology of the group of volume-preserving and symplectic diffeomorphisms, measurable transfer and higher asymptotic cycles (Q1291803)

The ideas of \textit{R. Bott} [Enseign. Math., II. Ser. 23, 209-220 (1977; Zbl 0367.57004)] concerning cohomologies of groups of diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold \(M^n\) are developed in the case of the group \(\text{Diff}_{\nu}(M)\) of diffeomorphisms preserving the volume form \(\nu\) and for the group \(\text{Sympl}(M)\) of symplectic diffeomorphisms. The author constructs a series of continuous cohomology classes in \(H_{\text{cont}}^k(\text{Diff}_{\nu}(M);\mathbb R)\) for all \(k=5,9,\dots\) and in \(H_{\text{cont}}^{2k}(\text{Sympl}(M);\mathbb R)\) for \(k=1,3,\dots\). These classes are nontrivial for a torus \(T^n\). The classes arise from the \(\text{SL}_n(\mathbb R)\)-invariant closed \(k\)-forms Borel on \(\text{SL}_n(\mathbb R)/\text{SO}(n)\) at action of \(\text{Diff}_{\nu}(M)\) on the space of Riemannian metrics on \(M\) with volume form \(\nu\). In the symplectic case an \(\text{Sp}(2n,\mathbb R)\)-invariant forms on \(\text{Sp}(2n,\mathbb R)/U(n)\) and action of the group \(\text{Sympl}(M)\) on the space of tamed almost-complex structures on \(M\) is used. Let \(\Sigma\) be a closed surface of genus \(g\geq 2\) and \(\mathcal{M}_g\) be a moduli space of stable vector bundles of rank \(2\) over \(\Sigma\). It is known, that \(\mathcal{M}_g\) is a symplectic manifold of dimension \(6g-6\). Theorem 1. \(H_{\text{cont}}^{2}(\text{Sympl}(\mathcal{M}_g);\mathbb R)\) is nontrivial for \(g\geq 3\). Moreover, the homomorphism \(\text{Map}_g \rightarrow \text{Sympl}(\mathcal{M}_g)\) induces a nontrivial map in the second real cohomology. In this paper is introduced a new ``Chern-Simons'' class in \(H^{3}(\text{Diff}_{\nu}(S^3),\mathbb R/\mathbb Z)\) which has the rigidity property: for a continuous family of representations of a f.g. group \(\Gamma\) into \(\text{Sympl}(M)\), the pull-backs of these classes are constant in \(H^{*}(\Gamma)\). Theorem 2. There exists a rigid class in \(H^{3}(\text{Diff}_{\nu}^{\delta}(S^3),\mathbb R/\mathbb Z)\) whose restriction on \(\text{SO}(4)\cong S^3\times S^3/\mathbb Z_2\) coincides with the sum of standard Chern-Simons classes. Moreover, for \(M=S^3/\Gamma\) there exists a class in \(H^{3}(\text{Diff}_{\nu}(M),\mathbb R/\mathbb Z)\) whose restriction on \(S^3\) is \(| \Gamma| \) times the standard Chern-Simons class.