No Arabic abstract
We give a construction of $G_2$ and $Spin(7)$ instantons on exceptional holonomy manifolds constructed by Bryant and Salamon, by using an ansatz of spherical symmetry coming from the manifolds being the total spaces of rank-4 vector bundles. In the $G_2$ case, we show that, in the asymptotically conical model, the connections are asymptotic to Hermitian Yang-Mills connections on the nearly Kahler $S^3times S^3$.
We study mirror symmetry of type II strings on manifolds with the exceptional holonomy groups $G_2$ and Spin(7). Our central result is a construction of mirrors of Spin(7) manifolds realized as generalized connected sums. In parallel to twisted connected sum $G_2$ manifolds, mirrors of such Spin(7) manifolds can be found by applying mirror symmetry to the pair of non-compact manifolds they are glued from. To provide non-trivial checks for such geometric mirror constructions, we give a CFT analysis of mirror maps for Joyce orbifolds in several new instances for both the Spin(7) and the $G_2$ case. For all of these models we find possible assignments of discrete torsion phases, work out the action of mirror symmetry, and confirm the consistency with the geometrical construction. A novel feature appearing in the examples we analyse is the possibility of frozen singularities.
We study a natural contact instanton (CI) equation on gauge fields over 7-dimensional Sasakian manifolds, which is closely related both to the transverse Hermitian Yang-Mills (tHYM) condition and the G_2-instanton equation. We obtain, by Fredholm theory, a finite-dimensional local model for the moduli space of irreducible solutions. We derive cohomological conditions for smoothness, and we express its dimension in terms of the index of a transverse elliptic operator. Finally we show that the moduli space of selfdual contact instantons (ASDI) is Kahler, in the Sasakian case. As an instance of concrete interest, we specialise to transversely holomorphic Sasakian bundles over contact Calabi-Yau 7-manifolds, and we show that, in this context, the notions of contact instanton, integrable G_2-instanton and HYM connection coincide.
It is a prominent conjecture (relating Riemannian geometry and algebraic topology) that all simply-connected compact manifolds of special holonomy should be formal spaces, i.e., their rational homotopy type should be derivable from their rational cohomology algebra already -- an as prominent as particular property in rational homotopy theory. Special interest now lies on exceptional holonomy $G_2$ and $Spin(7)$. In this article we provide a method of how to confirm that the famous Joyce examples of holonomy $G_2$ indeed are formal spaces; we concretely exert this computation for one example which may serve as a blueprint for the remaining Joyce examples (potentially also of holonomy $Spin(7)$). These considerations are preceded by another result identifying the formality of manifolds admitting special structures: we prove the formality of nearly Kahler manifolds. A connection between these two results can be found in the fact that both special holonomy and nearly Kahler naturally generalize compact Kahler manifolds, whose formality is a classical and celebrated theorem by Deligne-Griffiths-Morgan-Sullivan.
We establish the theory of Berezin-Toeplitz quantization on symplectic manifolds of bounded geometry. The quantum space of this quantization is the spectral subspace of the renormalized Bochner Laplacian associated with some interval near zero. We show that this quantization has the correct semiclassical limit.
This paper generalizes Bismuts equivariant Chern character to the setting of abelian gerbes. In particular, associated to an abelian gerbe with connection, an equivariantly closed differential form is constructed on the space of maps of a torus into the manifold. These constructions are made explicit using a new local version of the higher Hochschild complex, resulting in differential forms given by iterated integrals. Connections to two dimensional topological field theories are indicated. Similarly, this local higher Hochschild complex is used to calculate the 2-holonomy of an abelian gerbe along any closed oriented surface, as well as the derivative of 2-holonomy, which in the case of a torus fits into a sequence of higher holonomies and their differentials.