Skip to main content
1 of 7
Kevin Wray
  • 1.7k
  • 14
  • 20

topological actions

I have a two-part question:

(1) First and foremost: I have been going through the paper by Dijkgraaf and Witten "Group Cohomology and Topological Field Theories." (See http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.cmp/1104180750) Here they give a general definition for the Chern-Simons action for a general $3$-manifold $M$. My question is if anyone knows of any follow-up to this, or notes about their paper?

(2) To those who know the paper: They say that they have no problem defining the action modulo $1/n$ (for a bundle of order $n$) as $n\cdot S = \int_B Tr(F\wedge F)$ $(mod 1)$, but that this has an $n$-fold ambiguity consisting of the ability to add a multiple of $1/n$ to the action - What do they mean here? Also, later on they re-define the action as $S = 1/n\left(\int_B Tr(F\wedge F) - \langle \gamma^\ast(\omega),B\rangle\right)$ $(mod 1)$ - How does this get rid of the so-called ambiguity?

Basically my question is if anyone can further explain the info between equations 3.4 and 3.5 in their paper. Thanks.

Kevin Wray
  • 1.7k
  • 14
  • 20