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Lecture

Cohomology: Abelian Cochains

In course

MATH-323: Topology III - Homology

Homology is one of the most important tools to study topological spaces and it plays an important role in many fields of mathematics. The aim of this course is to introduce this notion, understand its properties and learn how to compute it. There will be m ...

Description

This lecture introduces the concept of cohomology, focusing on abelian cochains in a topological space. It explains the chain complex of singular chains, the group of coefficients, and the homomorphisms involved. The lecture also covers the definition of cohomology groups and their correspondence with singular cochains.

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Instructor

Leonid Monin

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Topology: Algebraic topology

Related concepts (23)

Cohomology

In mathematics, specifically in homology theory and algebraic topology, cohomology is a general term for a sequence of abelian groups, usually one associated with a topological space, often defined from a cochain complex. Cohomology can be viewed as a method of assigning richer algebraic invariants to a space than homology. Some versions of cohomology arise by dualizing the construction of homology. In other words, cochains are functions on the group of chains in homology theory.

Chain complex

In mathematics, a chain complex is an algebraic structure that consists of a sequence of abelian groups (or modules) and a sequence of homomorphisms between consecutive groups such that the of each homomorphism is included in the kernel of the next. Associated to a chain complex is its homology, which describes how the images are included in the kernels. A cochain complex is similar to a chain complex, except that its homomorphisms are in the opposite direction. The homology of a cochain complex is called its cohomology.

Group cohomology

In mathematics (more specifically, in homological algebra), group cohomology is a set of mathematical tools used to study groups using cohomology theory, a technique from algebraic topology. Analogous to group representations, group cohomology looks at the group actions of a group G in an associated G-module M to elucidate the properties of the group. By treating the G-module as a kind of topological space with elements of representing n-simplices, topological properties of the space may be computed, such as the set of cohomology groups .

Čech cohomology

In mathematics, specifically algebraic topology, Čech cohomology is a cohomology theory based on the intersection properties of open covers of a topological space. It is named for the mathematician Eduard Čech. Let X be a topological space, and let be an open cover of X. Let denote the nerve of the covering. The idea of Čech cohomology is that, for an open cover consisting of sufficiently small open sets, the resulting simplicial complex should be a good combinatorial model for the space X.

Lie algebra cohomology

In mathematics, Lie algebra cohomology is a cohomology theory for Lie algebras. It was first introduced in 1929 by Élie Cartan to study the topology of Lie groups and homogeneous spaces by relating cohomological methods of Georges de Rham to properties of the Lie algebra. It was later extended by to coefficients in an arbitrary Lie module. If is a compact simply connected Lie group, then it is determined by its Lie algebra, so it should be possible to calculate its cohomology from the Lie algebra.

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