Flat pairing and generalized Cheeger-Simons characters (Q2012171)

Differential generalized cohomology theory is an area of mathematics that has been attracting a considerable interest. It has applications in describing Wess-Zumino-Witten terms in gauged sigma models, in the study of conformal immersions, and in the classifications of Ramond-Ramond fields in type IIA/B superstring theory to list a few. Given the singular cohomology theory defined on smooth manifolds, its differential extension was first invented by \textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{J. Simons} [Geometry and topology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1985; Zbl 0621.57010)] and \textit{P. Deligne} [Théorie de Hodge. II, Inst. Hautes Etudes Sci. Publ. Math. 40, 5--57 (1971; Zbl 0219.14007)], and following by \textit{M. Karoubi} [Astérisque 149, 1--147 (1987; Zbl 0648.18008)] and \textit{J. Lott} [Commun. Anal. Geom. 2, No. 2, 279--311 (1994; Zbl 0840.58044)] on flat differential extension of complex \(K\)-theory, \textit{M. Hopkins} and \textit{I. Singer} [J. Differential Geom. 70, No. 3, 329--452 (2005; Zbl 1116.58018)] constructed a differential extension of any given generalized cohomology theory, and it has been known that several different models of differential extensions are naturally isomorphic as long as they commonly satisfy a set of axioms (see [\textit{J. Simons} and \textit{D. Sullivan}, J. Topol. 1, No. 1, 45--56 (2008; Zbl 1163.57020); \textit{U. Bunke} and \textit{T. Schick}, J. Topol. 3, No. 1, 110--156 (2010; Zbl 1252.55002)] for more details). For each differential generalized cohomology, constructing a twisted and equivariant refinement is an active research topic [\textit{D. Grady} and \textit{H. Sati}, ``Twisted smooth Deligne cohomology'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1706.02742}; \textit{C. Redden}, New York J. Math. 23, 441--487 (2017; Zbl 1364.53025)]. In [\textit{J. Cheeger} and \textit{J. Simons}, Geometry and topology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1985; Zbl 0621.57010)] differential characters have been used to define a differential extention of the singular cohomology theory on smooth manifolds. The article under review provides a construction of a generalized differential character group of a smooth manifold by using generalized differential characters. The group is naturally isomorphic to the corresponding differential extension of the underlying generalized cohomology theory evaluated at the same manifold, under fairly mild conditions. We summarize the contents of this article. Section 2 sets up notations and defines what a multiplicative differential extension \(\widehat h^\bullet\) of a multiplicative generalized cohomology theory \(h^\bullet\) is. Section 3.1 summarizes definitions and lemmas about the Thom class, the Gysin map and a \(h^\bullet\)-orientation. Section 3.2 treats differential Thom classes and their homotopy as well as a necessary and sufficient condition for two differential Thom classes to be homotopic. The existence of a canonical differential Thom class on a product bundle \(X\times \mathbb{R}^N\) refining the canonical topological one is proved, and this enables an \(\widehat h^\bullet\)-orientation to be defined as an equivalence class of representatives up to the equivalence relations generated by homotopy and stabilization in Section 3.3. The differential Gysin map and the wrong-way map on differential forms are defined also in this section, and several properties of these are verified. Section 4 recalls \textit{M. Jakob}'s definition [Manuscr. Math. 96, No. 1, 67--80 (1998; Zbl 0897.55004)] of a generalized homology theory of a topological space \(X\) whose homotopy type is a finite CW-complex. In this definition the generalized homology group is defined by a group of cycles modulo a group of boundaries, where both cycles and boundaries are defined geometrically. The author gives descriptions of the natural map \(h^{n}(X)\rightarrow \text{Hom}_{\mathfrak{h}^\bullet}(h_{n-\bullet}(X),\mathfrak{h}^\bullet)\) as well as a map \(h^\bullet(X;\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})\rightarrow \text{Hom}_{\mathfrak{h}^\bullet}(h_{n-\bullet}(X),\mathfrak{h}_{\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}}^\bullet)\). Here and below \(\mathfrak{h}^\bullet\), \(\mathfrak{h}_{\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}}^\bullet\), and \(\widehat {\mathfrak{h}}_{\text{fl}}^\bullet\) denote the rings \({h}^\bullet(\text{point})\), \(h_{\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}}^\bullet(\text{point})\), and \(\widehat h_{\text{fl}}^\bullet(\text{point})\), respectively. In Section 5, a natural pairing, called the flat pairing, \(\widehat h_{\text{fl}}^\bullet(X)\rightarrow \text{Hom}_{\mathfrak{h}^\bullet}(h_{n-\bullet}(X),\widehat {\mathfrak{h}}_{\text{fl}}^\bullet)\) is defined in the same way, and this pairing coincides with the aforementioned pairing defined on \(h^\bullet(X;\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})\) if \(\widehat h_{\text{fl}}^\bullet\cong h^\bullet(-;\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})\). In particular, the author shows that the flat pairing is an isomorphism if \(\mathfrak{h}^\bullet\) has no torsion. This result plays a crucial role for the natural map from the differential extension \(\widehat h^\bullet\) of \(h^\bullet\) to \(\breve h^\bullet\) the generalized differential characters for \(h^\bullet\) that the author defines in Section 6 becoming an isomorphism. Otherwise the map from \(h^\bullet(X)\) to \(\breve h^\bullet(X)\) may have a nontrivial kernel and a nontrivial cokernel, and the author identifies the kernel and the cokernel by showing that they are respectively isomorphic to those of the flat pairing. Finally the author specializes to cases of singular cohomology and complex \(K\)-theory. He shows that the abelian group of differential characters in \(K\)-theory defined by the author is naturally isomorphic to the differential \(K\)-group defined by \textit{K. Klonoff} [An index theorem in differential K-theory. Ann Arbor: ProQuest LLC (2008)] and \textit{D. Freed} and \textit{J. Lott} [Geom. Topol. 14, No. 2, 903--966 (2010; Zbl 1197.58007)] as well as the character group constructed in [\textit{M.-T. Benameur} and \textit{M. Magufoul}, Differ. Geom. Appl. 24, No. 4, 417--432 (2006; Zbl 1138.58007)].