On the B-twisted topological sigma model and Calabi-Yau geometry (Q273217)

This paper forms a part of \textit{K. Costello}'s mathematical framework for deformation quantization in quantum field theory, envisioned as an analogue to deformation quantization in quantum mechanics [Renormalization and effective field theory. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2011; Zbl 1221.81004)]. It is hard to compute or to describe such a quantization in general because of renormalization issues and Feymann diagrammatic complications. The paper under review studies a special case in which deformation quantization can be computed and described explicitly. The paper constructs a topological \(B\)-model and proves existence of a quantization for all smooth oriented surfaces, given a choice of holomorphic volume form on the target complex manifold (in particular, the obstruction to quantization is that the target manifold be Calabi-Yau). The model is generalized to the Landau-Ginzburg case via a twisting procedure. Formulas for the resulting observables and correlation functions agree with previously known results. As such, this paper represents a substantial step forward for deformation quantization in the context of quantum field theory.