Supermanifold Forms and Integration. A Dual Theory

Abstract

We investigate forms on supermanifolds defined as Lagrangians of ``copaths'' (that is, systems of equations, which may or may not specify submanifolds). For this, we consider direct products $M^{n|m}\times\Bbb R^{r|s}$ and study isomorphisms corresponding to simultaneously advancing the number of additional parameters $r|s$ and the number of equations. We define an exteriour differential in terms of variational derivatives w.r.t. a copath and establish its main properties. In the resulting stable picture we obtain infinite complexes $\D:\Om{r}{s}\to\Om{r+1}{s}$ for $M^{n|m}$, where $0 \le s \le m$ and $r$ can be any integer. For $r\ge 0$ a canonical isomorphism with forms constructed as Lagrangians of $r|s$-paths is established. We discover the ``lacking half'' of forms on supermanifolds: $r|s$-forms with $r<0$, previously unknown except for $s=m$. (They have been partly replaced earlier by an augmentation of the ``non-negative'' part of the complexes.) All these results are new. The study of these questions is in progress now.