Topological gauge theories and group cohomology (Q916169)

The paper starts with a review of the singular homology and cohomology theory of topological spaces and the construction of topological actions. Considering that the three dimensional topological (Chern-Simons) theories are classified by classes in \(H^4(BG,Z)\) and the two dimensional Wess-Zumino actions are classified by classes of \(H^3(G,Z)\) the relation between these two theories is established through a natural map \(H^4(BG,Z)\to H^3(G,Z)\). This construction is extended to manifolds with spin structure. Finally, topological gauge theories with finite groups are discussed and related to two dimensional orbifold models.