Twisted K-theory on a manifold X, with twisting in the 3rd integral cohomology, is discussed in the case when X is a product of a circle and a manifold M. The twist is assumed to be decomposable as a cup product of the basic integral one form on and an integral class in H2(M,ℤ). This case was studied some time ago by V. Mathai, R. Melrose, and I.M. Singer. Our aim is to give an explicit construction for the twisted K-theory classes using a quantum field theory model, in the same spirit as the supersymmetric Wess-Zumino-Witten model is used for constructing (equivariant) twisted K-theory classes on compact Lie groups.

We find upper bounds on the essential dimension of the moduli stack of parabolic vector bundles over a curve. When there is no parabolic structure, we improve the known upper bound on the essential dimension of the usual moduli stack. Our calculations also give lower bounds on the essential dimension of the semistable locus inside the moduli stack of vector bundles of rank r and degree d without parabolic structure.

We use twisted sheaves and their moduli spaces to study the Brauer group of a scheme. In particular, we (1) show how twisted methods can be efficiently used to re-prove the basic facts about the Brauer group and cohomological Brauer group (including Gabber’s theorem that they coincide for a separated union of two affine schemes), (2) give a new proof of de Jong’s period-index theorem for surfaces over algebraically closed fields, and (3) prove an analogous result for surfaces over finite fields. We also include a reduction of all period-index problems for Brauer groups of function fields over algebraically closed fields to characteristic zero, which (among other things) extends de Jong’s result to include classes of period divisible by the characteristic of the base field. Finally, we use the theory developed here to give counterexamples to a standard type of local-to-global conjecture for geometrically rational varieties over the function field of the projective plane.

We give a natural obstruction theoretic interpretation to the first Pontryagin class in terms of Courant algebroids. As an application we calculate the class of the stack of algebras of chiral differential operators. In particular, we establish the existence and uniqueness of the chiral de Rham complex.

The classical Fourier–Mukai duality establishes an equivalence of categories between the derived categories of sheaves on dual complex tori. In this article we show that this equivalence extends to an equivalence between two dual objects. Both of these are generalized deformations of the complex tori. In one case, a complex torus is deformed formally in a non-commutative direction specified by a holomorphic Poisson structure. In the other, the dual complex torus is deformed in a $B$-field direction to a formal gerbe. We show that these two deformations are Fourier–Mukai equivalent.