In this dissertation, we developed a mathematical framework for cohomological field theories (CohFTs) in the language of ``QK-manifolds', which unifies the previous ones in (Baulieu and Singer 1988; Baulieu and Singer 1989; Ouvry, Stora, and Van Baal 1989; Atiyah and Jeffrey 1990; Birmingham et al. 1991; Kalkman 1993; Blau 1993). Within this new framework, we classified the (gauge invariant) solutions to the descent equations in CohFTs (with gauge symmetries). We revisited Witten’s idea of topological twisting and showed that the twisted super-Poincaré algebra gives rise naturally to a ``QK-structure'. We also generalized the Mathai-Quillen construction of the universal Thom class via a variational bicomplex lift of the equivariant cohomology. Our framework enables a uniform treatment of examples like topological quantum mechanics, topological sigma model, and topological Yang-Mills theory.

Orientador: Ermínia de Lourdes Campello Fanti / Banca: Fernanda Soares Pinto Cardona / Banca: Maria Gorete Carreira Andrade / Resumo: Neste trabalho são abordados alguns aspectos da teoria de dualidade. Ele pode ser dividido em três partes principais. Na primeira demonstramos o teorema de Dualidade de Poincaré para variedades (sem bordo) orientáveis. Para tanto, fez-se necessário o uso do limite direto e cohomologia com suporte compacto. Na segunda definimos grupos de dualidade, em particular, grupo de dualidade de Poincaré, apresentamos alguns resultados e observações sobre a relação existente entre tais grupos e os grupos fundamentais de variedades asféricas fechadas, que é ainda um problema em aberto. Finalmente, alguns resultados envolvendo invariantes cohomológicos "ends" e grupos de dualidade são apresentados. / Abstract: In this work we consider some aspects of duality theory. It can be divided in three principal parts. In the first we prove the Poincaré Duality theorem for orientable manifolds (without boundary). For that, it is necessary the use of the direct limit and cohomology with compact supports. In the second part we de¯ne duality groups, in particular, Poincaré duality groups, we introduce some results and observations about the relationship between such groups and fundamental groups of aspherical closed manifolds, that still is an open problem. Finally, some results envolving the cohomological invariant "ends" and duality groups are presented. / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008-03-31Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:19:04Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 cellini_cp_me_sjrp.pdf: 781641 bytes, checksum: 70ed1b385d132f8255370c0014be09b4 (MD5) / Neste trabalho são abordados alguns aspectos da teoria de dualidade. Ele pode ser dividido em três partes principais. Na primeira demonstramos o teorema de Dualidade de Poincaré para variedades (sem bordo) orientáveis. Para tanto, fez-se necessário o uso do limite direto e cohomologia com suporte compacto. Na segunda definimos grupos de dualidade, em particular, grupo de dualidade de Poincaré, apresentamos alguns resultados e observações sobre a relação existente entre tais grupos e os grupos fundamentais de variedades asféricas fechadas, que é ainda um problema em aberto. Finalmente, alguns resultados envolvendo invariantes cohomológicos ends e grupos de dualidade são apresentados. / In this work we consider some aspects of duality theory. It can be divided in three principal parts. In the first we prove the Poincaré Duality theorem for orientable manifolds (without boundary). For that, it is necessary the use of the direct limit and cohomology with compact supports. In the second part we de¯ne duality groups, in particular, Poincaré duality groups, we introduce some results and observations about the relationship between such groups and fundamental groups of aspherical closed manifolds, that still is an open problem. Finally, some results envolving the cohomological invariant ends and duality groups are presented.

Les travaux de ma thèse s'articulent en trois parties distinctes.Dans la première partie j'étudie les mesures de Malliavin-Shavguldize sur les difféomorphismes du cercle et de l'intervalle. Il s'agit de mesures de type « Haar » pour ces groupes de dimension infinie : elles furent introduites il a une vingtaine d'années pour permettre une étude de leur théorie des représentations. Un premier chapitre est dédié à recueillir les résultats présents dans la littérature et et les représenter dans une forme plus étendue, avec un regard particulier sur les propriétés de quasi-invariance de ces mesures. Ensuite j'étudie de problèmes de nature plus dynamique : quelle est la dynamique qu'on doit s'attendre d'un difféomorphisme choisi uniformément par rapport à une mesure de Malliavin-Shavguldize ? Je démontre en particulier qu'il y a une forte présence des difféomorphismes de type Morse-Smale.La partie suivante vient de mon premier travail publié, obtenu en collaboration avec Andrés Navas. Inspirés d'un théorème récent de Avila et Kocsard sur l'unicité des distributions invariantes par un difféomorphisme lisse minimal du cercle, nous analysons le même problème en régularité faible, avec des argument plus géométriques.La dernière partie est constituée des résultats récemment obtenus avec Mikhail Khristoforov et Victor Kleptsyn. Nous abordons les problèmes reliés à la gravité quantique de Liouville en étudiant des espaces auto-similaires qui sont la limite de graphes finis. Nous démontrons qu'il est possible de trouver des distances aléatoires non-triviales sur ces espaces qui sont compatibles avec la structure auto-similaire. / This thesis is divided into three different parts.In the first part, we study the Malliavin-Shavgulidze measure on circle and interval diffeomorphisms. They are Haar-like measures for these infinite-dimensional groups: they were introduced about twenty years ago to help to study their represantation theory. The first chapter collects the results that were obtained in the past years and in some cases we present them under a renewed point of view, with particular attention on quasi-invariance properties for this measures. Then we study some questions of dynamical nature: which is the typical dynamics that we must expect described by a diffeomorphism chosen randomly according to some Malliavin-Shavguldize measure? In particular, we prove that there is a strong presence of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms.The third chapter comes from the published joint work with Andrés Navas. Inspired by a recent theorem by Avila and Kocsard about the uniqueness of the invariant distribution for a minimal smooth circle diffeomorphism, we analyse the same problem in low regularity, with more geometric arguments.The last part corresponds to the recent results obtained with Mikhail Khristoforov and Victor Kleptsyn. We consider problems in relation with Liouville quantum gravity, by studying self-similar metric spaces which are the limit of finite graphs. We prove that it is possible to find nontrivial random distances on these spaces which are compatible with the self-similar structure.

This thesis concerns two topics. The first topic, that is related to the Dedekind-Mertens Lemma, the notion of the so-called content algebra, is discussed in chapter 2. Let $R$ be a commutative ring with identity and $M$ be a unitary $R$-module and $c$ the function from $M$ to the ideals of $R$ defined by $c(x) = \cap \lbrace I \colon I \text{~is an ideal of~} R \text{~and~} x \in IM \rbrace $. $M$ is said to be a \textit{content} $R$-module if $x \in c(x)M $, for all $x \in M$. The $R$-algebra $B$ is called a \textit{content} $R$-algebra, if it is a faithfully flat and content $R$-module and it satisfies the Dedekind-Mertens content formula. In chapter 2, it is proved that in content extensions, minimal primes extend to minimal primes, and zero-divisors of a content algebra over a ring which has Property (A) or whose set of zero-divisors is a finite union of prime ideals are discussed. The preservation of diameter of zero-divisor graph under content extensions is also examined. Gaussian and Armendariz algebras and localization of content algebras at the multiplicatively closed set $S^ \prime = \lbrace f \in B \colon c(f) = R \rbrace$ are considered as well. In chapter 3, the second topic of the thesis, that is about the grade of the zero-divisor modules, is discussed. Let $R$ be a commutative ring, $I$ a finitely generated ideal of $R$, and $M$ a zero-divisor $R$-module. It is shown that the $M$-grade of $I$ defined by the Koszul complex is consistent with the definition of $M$-grade of $I$ defined by the length of maximal $M$-sequences in I$. Chapter 1 is a preliminarily chapter and dedicated to the introduction of content modules and also locally Nakayama modules.