Flat connections and cohomology invariants

Abstract: The main goal of this article is to construct some geometric invariants for the topology of the set

m a t h c a l F

of flat connections on a principal

G

-bundle

P, l o n g r i g h t a r r o w, M

. Although the characteristic classes of principal bundles are trivial when

m a t h c a l F e q e m p t y s e t

, their classical Chern-Weil construction can still be exploited to define a homomorphism from the set of homology classes of maps

S l o n g r i g h t a r r o w m a t h c a l F

to the cohomology group

H^{2 r - k} (M, m a t h b b R)

, where

S

is null-cobordant

(k - 1)

-manifold, once a

G

-invariant polynomial

p

of degree

r

on

e x t L i e (G)

is fixed. For

S = S^{k - 1}

, this gives a homomorphism

p i_{k - 1} (m a t h c a l F) l o n g r i g h t a r r o w H^{2 r - k} (M, m a t h b b R)

. The map is shown to be globally gauge invariant and furthermore it descends to the moduli space of flat connections

m a t h c a l F / m a t h r m G a u P

, modulo cohomology with integer coefficients. The construction is also adapted to complex manifolds. In this case, one works with the set

m a t h c a l F^{0, 2}

of connections with vanishing

(0, 2)

-part of the curvature, and the Dolbeault cohomology. Some examples and applications are presented.

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