Nonabelian bundle gerbes, their differential geometry and gauge theory (Q2571121)

The aim of the paper is to study the nonabelian generalization of abelian bundle gerbes and the associated differential geometry. The authors introduce the notion of bibundles and their products. They develop differential geometry of bibundles -- the notion of connections, the covariant exterior derivatives and curvatures -- parallel to the corresponding notions on principal bundles. Using products between bibundles, they introduce bundle gerbes. These are described in terms of their local transition functions which are bibundles on double overlaps of open sets. They also study the notion of bundle gerbe connection, nonabelian curving and the corresponding nonabelian curvature form.