Geometric Structures on the Cochains of a Manifold

Abstract

In this paper we develop several algebraic structures on the simplicial cochains of a triangulated manifold that are analogues of objects in differential geometry. We study a cochain product and prove several statements about its convergence to the wedge product on differential forms. Also, for cochains with an inner product, we define a combinatorial Hodge star operator, and describe some applications, including a combinatorial period matrix for surfaces. We show that for a particularly nice cochain inner product, these combinatorial structures converge to their continuum analogues as the mesh of a triangulation tends to zero.