Higher Geometric Structures on Manifolds and the Gauge Theory of Deligne Cohomology

arXiv2304.06633MaRDI QIDQ6432996FDOQ6432996

Severin Bunk, C. S. Shahbazi

Publication date: 13 April 2023

Abstract: We study smooth higher symmetry groups and moduli $infty$-stacks of generic higher geometric structures on manifolds. Symmetries are automorphisms which cover non-trivial diffeomorphisms of the base manifold. We construct the smooth higher symmetry group of any geometric structure on $M$ and show that this completely classifies, via a universal property, equivariant structures on the higher geometry. We construct moduli stacks of higher geometric data as $infty$-categorical quotients by the action of the higher symmetries, extract information about the homotopy types of these moduli $infty$-stacks, and prove a helpful sufficient criterion for when two such higher moduli stacks are equivalent. In the second part of the paper we study higher $mathrmU(1)$-connections. First, we observe that higher connections come organised into higher groupoids, which further carry affine actions by Baez-Crans-type higher vector spaces. We compute a presentation of the higher gauge actions for $n$-gerbes with $k$-connection, comment on the relation to higher-form symmetries, and present a new String group model. We construct smooth moduli $infty$-stacks of higher Maxwell and Einstein-Maxwell solutions, correcting previous such considerations in the literature, and compute the homotopy groups of several moduli $infty$-stacks of higher $mathrmU(1)$- connections. Finally, we show that a discrepancy between two approaches to the differential geometry of NSNS supergravity (via generalised and higher geometry, respectively) vanishes at the level of moduli $infty$-stacks of NSNS supergravity solutions.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Differential geometric aspects of gerbes and differential characters (53C08) Applications of differential geometry to physics (53Z05) Simplicial sets, simplicial objects (18N50) Moduli problems for differential geometric structures (58D27) ((infty,1))-categories (quasi-categories, Segal spaces, etc.); (infty)-topoi, stable (infty)-categories (18N60)

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