Brownian surfaces with boundary and Deligne cohomology

We define differentiable random surfaces, which realize a kind of generalized parallel transport for line bundles over the loop space. This gives a realization of one of the axioms of Segal of conformal field theory.     

Extensions of Modules over Schur Algebras, Symmetric Groups and Hecke Algebras

We study the relation between the cohomology of general linear and symmetric groups and their respective quantizations, using Schur algebras and standard homological techniques to build appropriate spectral sequences. As our methods fit inside a much more general context within the theory of finite-dimensional algebras, we develop our results first in that general setting, and then specialize to the above situations. From this we obtain new proofs of several known results in modular representation theory of symmetric groups. Moreover, we reduce certain questions about computing extensions for symmetric groups and Hecke algebras to questions about extensions for general linear groups and their quantizations.     

Oriented Cohomology Theories of Algebraic Varieties

This article contains proofs of the results announced by Panin and Smirnov (http://www. math.uiuc.edu/k-theory/0459/2000) in the part concerning general properties of oriented cohomology theories of algebraic varieties. It is constructed one-to-one correspondences between orientations, Chern structures and Thom structures on a given ring cohomology theory. The theory is illustrated by motivic cohomology, algebraic K-theory, algebraic cobordism theory and by other examples.     

Orbifolds, Sheaves and Groupoids

We characterize orbifolds in terms of their sheaves, and show that orbifolds correspond exactly to a specific class of smooth groupoids. As an application, we construct fibered products of orbifolds and prove a change-of-base formula for sheaf cohomology.     

Deformations of complex structures on Γ/SL 2(C)

LetG be a connected complex semisimple Lie group. Let Γ be a cocompact lattice inG. In this paper, we show that whenG isSL ₂(C), nontrivial deformations of the canonical complex structure onX exist if and only if the first Betti number of the lattice Γ is non-zero. It may be remarked that for a wide class of arithmetic groups Γ, one can find a subgroup Γ′ of finite index in Γ, such that Γ′/[Γ′,Γ′] is finite (it is a conjecture of Thurston that this is true for all cocompact lattices inSL(2, C)). We also show thatG acts trivially on the coherent cohomology groupsH ⁱ(Γ/G, O) for anyi≥0.     

An algebraic index theorem for orbifolds

Using the concept of a twisted trace density on a cyclic groupoid, a trace is constructed on a formal deformation quantization of a symplectic orbifold. An algebraic index theorem for orbifolds follows as a consequence of a local Riemann-Roch theorem for such densities. In the case of a reduced orbifold, this proves a conjecture by Fedosov, Schulze, and Tarkhanov. Finally, it is shown how the Kawasaki index theorem for elliptic operators on orbifolds follows from this algebraic index theorem.     

Cyclic cohomology and algebra extensions

We construct a spectral sequence to study cyclic cohomology for an extension A = R/I of algebras. When R is a free algebra we describe the cyclic cohomology of A in terms of traces defined on R or powers of I. Explicit cyclic cocycles representing the cyclic cohomology class belonging to the trace are constructed as analogues of Chern character and Chern-Simons forms.Dedicated to Alexander Grothendieck     

Four‐dimensional couplings among BF and matter theories from BRST cohomology

The local and manifestly covariant Lagrangian interactions in four spacetime dimensions that can be added to a “free” model that describes a generic matter theory and an abelian BF theory are constructed by means of deforming the solution to the master equation on behalf of specific cohomological techniques.     

Hopf Modules and Noncommutative Differential Geometry

We define a new algebra of noncommutative differential forms for any Hopf algebra with an invertible antipode. We prove that there is a one-to-one correspondence between anti-Yetter–Drinfeld modules, which serve as coefficients for the Hopf cyclic (co)homology, and modules which admit a flat connection with respect to our differential calculus. Thus, we show that these coefficient modules can be regarded as “flat bundles” in the sense of Connes’ noncommutative differential geometry.