Topological Quantum Field Theory Seminar  

30/11/2009, 14:30 — 15:30 — Room P3.10, Mathematics Building
Camille Laurent, University of Coimbra

Introduction to Abelian and non-Abelian gerbes

We shall use the language of Lie groupoids and Morita equivalence to introduce gerbes, and connections on them. The advantage of this presentation is that it makes it possible to use ordinary differential geometry, without going to "higher" objects - the default being the need to check the invariance of all constructions under Morita equivalence. I shall try to relate this construction with previous ones, especially the constructions of Breen and Messing.