Twisted differential K-characters and D-branes

Abstract: We analyse in detail the language of partially non-abelian Deligne cohomology and of twisted differential K-theory, in order to describe the geometry of type II superstring backgrounds with D-branes. This description will also provide the opportunity to show some mathematical results of independent interest. In particular, we begin classifying the possible gauge theories on a D-brane or on a stack of D-branes using the intrinsic tool of long exact sequences. Afterwards, we recall how to construct two relevant models of differential twisted K-theory, paying particular attention to the dependence on the twisting cocycle within its cohomology class. In this way we will be able to define twisted K-homology and twisted Cheeger-Simons K-characters in the category of simply-connected manifolds, eliminating any unnatural dependence on the cocycle. The ambiguity left for non simply-connected manifolds will naturally correspond to the ambiguity in the gauge theory, following the previous classification. This picture will allow for a complete characterization of D-brane world-volumes, the Wess-Zumino action and topological D-brane charges within the K-theoretical framework, that can be compared step by step to the old cohomological classification. This has already been done for backgrounds with vanishing B-field; here we remove this hypothesis.