arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Alberto S. Cattaneo.
An observable for nonabelian, higher-dimensional forms is introduced, its properties are discussed and its expectation value in BF theory is described. This is shown to produce potential and genuine invariants of higher-dimensional knots.
The string bracket introduced by Chas and Sullivan [math.GT/9911159] is reinterpreted from the point of view of topological field theories in the Batalin-Vilkovisky or BRST formalisms. Namely, topological action functionals for gauge fields (generalizing Chern-Simons and BF theories) are considered together with generalized Wilson loops. The latter generate a (Poisson or Gerstenhaber) algebra of functionals with values in the $S^1$-equivariant cohomology of the loop space of the manifold on which the theory is defined. It is proved that, in the case of $GL_n$ with standard representation, the (Poisson or BV) bracket of two generalized Wilson loops applied to two cycles is the same as the generalized Wilson loop applied to the string bracket of the cycles. Generalizations to other groups are briefly described.
We review our construction of star-products on Poisson manifolds and discuss some examples. In particular, we work out the relation with Fedosov's original construction in the symplectic case.
The globalization of Kontsevich's local formula (resp., the perturbative expansion of the Poisson sigma model) is described in down-to-earth terms.
This paper analyzes in details the Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization procedure for BF theories on n-dimensional manifolds and describes a suitable superformalism to deal with the master equation and the search of observables. In particular, generalized Wilson loops for BF theories with additional polynomial B-interactions are discussed in any dimensions. The paper also contains the explicit proofs to the Theorems stated in math.QA/0003073.
We give an explicit construction of a deformation quantization of the algebra of functions on a Poisson manifolds, based on Kontsevich's local formula. The deformed algebra of functions is realized as the algebra of horizontal sections of a vector bundle with flat connection.
This is a review aimed at a physics audience on the relation between Poisson sigma models on surfaces with boundary and deformation quantization. These models are topological open string theories. In the classical Hamiltonian approach, we describe the reduced phase space and its structures (symplectic groupoid), explaining in particular the classical origin of the non-commutativity of the string end-point coordinates. We also review the perturbative Lagrangian approach and its connection with Kontsevich's star product. Finally we comment on the relation between the two approaches.
We review and extend the Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-Zaboronsky construction of solutions of the Batalin-Vilkovisky classical master equation. In particular, we study the case of sigma models on manifolds with boundary. We show that a special case of this construction yields the Batalin-Vilkovisky action functional of the Poisson sigma model on a disk. As we have shown in a previous paper, the perturbative quantization of this model is related to Kontsevich's deformation quantization of Poisson manifolds and to his formality theorem. We also discuss the action of diffeomorphisms of the target manifolds.
This paper has been withdrawn by the authors, due a crucial mistake in Lemma 2
A generalization of Wilson loop observables for BF theories in any dimension is introduced in the Batalin-Vilkovisky framework. The expectation values of these observables are cohomology classes of the space of imbeddings of a circle. One of the resulting theories discussed in the paper has only trivalent interactions and, irrespective of the actual dimension, looks like a 3-dimensional Chern-Simons theory.
We consider the Poisson sigma model associated to a Poisson manifold. The perturbative quantization of this model yields the Kontsevich star product formula. We study here the classical model in the Hamiltonian formalism. The phase space is the space of leaves of a Hamiltonian foliation and has a natural groupoid structure. If it is a manifold then it is a symplectic groupoid for the given Poisson manifold. We study various families of examples. In particular, a global symplectic groupoid for a general class of two-dimensional Poisson domains is constructed.
The first part of this paper is a short review of the construction [dg-ga/9710001] of invariants of rational homology 3-spheres and knots in terms of configuration space integrals. The second part describes the relationship between the above construction and Kontsevich's proposal of removing one point from the rational homology sphere. Explicit formulae are computed. In the case of the "Theta" invariant, a comparison with Taubes's construction is briefly discussed.
We give a quantum field theory interpretation of Kontsevich's deformation quantization formula for Poisson manifolds. We show that it is given by the perturbative expansion of the path integral of a simple topological bosonic open string theory. Its Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization yields a superconformal field theory. The associativity of the star product, and more generally the formality conjecture can then be understood by field theory methods. As an application, we compute the center of the deformed algebra in terms of the center of the Poisson algebra.
This note is a sequel to our earlier paper of the same title [dg-ga/9710001] and describes invariants of rational homology 3-spheres associated to acyclic orthogonal local systems. Our work is in the spirit of the Axelrod-Singer papers, generalizes some of their results, and furnishes a new setting for the purely topological implications of their work.
In the context of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, a new observable for the Abelian BF theory is proposed whose vacuum expectation value is related to the Alexander-Conway polynomial. The three-dimensional case is analyzed explicitly, and it is proved to be anomaly free. Moreover, at the second order in perturbation theory, a new formula for the second coefficient of the Alexander-Conway polynomial is obtained. An account on the higher-dimensional generalizations is also given.
A generating function for cabled Wilson loops in three-dimensional BF theories is defined, and a careful study of its behavior for vanishing cosmological constant is performed. This allows an exhaustive description of the unframed knot invariants coming from the pure BF theory based on SU(2), and in particular, it proves a conjecture relating them to the Alexander-Conway polynomial.