Workshop, Ezra Getzler: Homotopy moments maps and differential characters

Speaker
Ezra Getzler, Northwestern U/Uppsala U

Abstract
Chris Rogers has explained how L-infinity algebras (more precisely, Lie n-algebras) provide the correct algebraic setting for the Poisson bracket on local densities in n-dimensional classical field theory. We describe what moment maps look like in this formalism. As an example, we consider the moment map for the action of the diffeomorphism group on Chern-Simons theory and study in what sense it vanishes.