Infinite Dimensional Chern-Simons Theory

Abstract

We extend finite dimensional Chern-Simons theory to certain infinite dimensional principal bundles with connections, in particular to the frame bundle $FLM\to LM$ over the loop space of a Riemannian manifold $M$. Chern-Simons forms are defined roughly as in finite dimensions with the invariant polynomials replaced by appropriate Wodzicki residues. This produces odd dimensional $\R/\Z$-valued cohomology classes on $LM$ if $M$ is parallelizable. We compute an example of a metric on the loop space of $S^3\times S^1$ for which the three dimensional Chern-Simons class is nontrivial.