On regular Courant algebroids (Q360423)

This paper constructs a characteristic class for regular Courant algebroids. Let us recall that Severa proved that the isomorphism classes of exact Courant algebroids can be classified by a degree-3 de Rham cohomology. Therefore, it is natural to ask whether there is a degree-3 characteristic class for a Courant algebroid, resembling the Severa class. In this work, the authors give the answer for regular Courant algebroids. When the Courant algebroid is exact, they recover the Severa class. When the Courant algebroid is a quadratic Lie algebra, they recover the Cartan 3-form.