Bubble Divergences from Cellular Cohomology

We consider a class of lattice topological field theories, among which are the weak-coupling limit of 2d Yang–Mills theory, the Ponzano–Regge model of 3d quantum gravity and discrete BF theory, whose dynamical variables are flat discrete connections with compact structure group on a cell 2-complex. In these models, it is known that the path integral measure is ill-defined in general, because of a phenomenon called ‘bubble divergences’. A common expectation is that the degree of these divergences is given by the number of ‘bubbles’ of the 2-complex. In this note, we show that this expectation, although not realistic in general, is met in some special cases: when the 2-complex is simply connected, or when the structure group is Abelian – in both cases, the divergence degree is given by the second Betti number of the 2-complex.