Higher gauge theory I: 2-Bundles

TL;DR

This paper develops a higher gauge theory framework by categorifying fibre bundles into 2-bundles, establishing their equivalence with gerbes, and demonstrating their independence from the fibre, with connections linked via cohomological data.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of 2-bundles as a categorification of fibre bundles, linking them to gerbes and showing their independence from the fibre structure.

Findings

2-category of 2-bundles is independent of the fibre

Equivalence between 2-bundles and gerbes under certain conditions

Cohomological description of 2-bundles via 2-transitions

Abstract

I categorify the definition of fibre bundle, replacing smooth manifolds with differentiable categories, Lie groups with coherent Lie 2-groups, and bundles with a suitable notion of 2-bundle. To link this with previous work, I show that certain 2-categories of principal 2-bundles are equivalent to certain 2-categories of (nonabelian) gerbes. This relationship can be (and has been) extended to connections on 2-bundles and gerbes. The main theorem, from a perspective internal to this paper, is that the 2-category of 2-bundles over a given 2-space under a given 2-group is (up to equivalence) independent of the fibre and can be expressed in terms of cohomological data (called 2-transitions). From the perspective of linking to previous work on gerbes, the main theorem is that when the 2-space is the 2-space corresponding to a given space and the 2-group is the automorphism 2-group of a given group, then this 2-category is equivalent to the 2-category of gerbes over that space under that group (being described by the same cohomological data).