A bigraded version of the Weil algebra and of the Weil homomorphism for Donaldson invariants. Elementary algebra and cohomology behind the Baulieu-Singer approach to Witten's topological Yang-Mills quantum field theory (Q1915647)

The author describes a bigraded generalization of the Weil algebra. The aim of this paper is to show that using this generalization one can generalize the Weil homomorphism in such a way that in addition to the usual characteristic classes it makes contact with the Donaldson invariants. This contact with Donaldson invariants seems natural since Donaldson invariants in the context of topological field theory are constructed by means of the Donaldson-Witten cocycles which are bigraded expansions of the Chern-Weil cocycles. The results of this paper imply that the classes of these bigraded expansions of Chern-Weil cocycles exhaust the image of the generalized characteristic homomorphism. In terms of fields this means that the (local) relevant basic BRS-cohomology of the bigraded differential algebra generated by the ghosts, the gauge potentials and their BRS and exterior differentials is exhausted by the above classes.