The world-volume theory of coincident M5-branes is expected to contain a nonabelian 2-form/nonabelian gerbe gauge theory that is a higher analog of self-dual Yang-Mills theory. But the precise details—in particular the global moduli/instanton/magnetic charge structure—have remained elusive. Here we deduce from anomaly cancellation a natural candidate for the holographic dual of this nonabelian 2-form field, under $\mathrm{AdS}_7 \; / \; \mathrm{CFT}_6$ duality. We find this way a 7-dimensional nonabelian Chern-Simons theory of String 2-connection fields, which, in a certain higher gauge, are given locally by non-abelian 2-forms with values in an affine Kac-Moody Lie algebra. We construct the corresponding action functional on the entire smooth moduli 2-stack of field configurations, thereby defining the theory globally, at all levels and with the full instanton structure, which is nontrivial due to the twists imposed by the quantum corrections. Along the way we explain some general phenomena of higher nonabelian gauge theory that we need.

The $c_2$ invariant of a Feynman graph is an arithmetic invariant which detects many properties of the corresponding Feynman integral. In this paper, we define the $c_2$ invariant in momentum space and prove that it equals the $c_2$ invariant in parametric space for overall log-divergent graphs. Then we show that the $c_2$ invariant of a graph vanishes whenever it contains subdivergences. Finally, we investigate how the $c_2$ invariant relates to identities such as the four-term relation in knot theory.

The method of intersection spaces associates rational Poincaré complexes to singular stratified spaces. For a conifold transition, the resulting cohomology theory yields the correct count of all present massless 3-branes in type IIB string theory, while intersection cohomology yields the correct count of massless 2-branes in type IIA theory. For complex projective hypersurfaces with an isolated singularity, we show that the cohomology of intersection spaces is the hypercohomology of a perverse sheaf, the intersection space complex, on the hypersurface. Moreover, the intersection space complex underlies a mixed Hodge module, so its hypercohomology groups carry canonical mixed Hodge structures. For a large class of singularities, e.g., weighted homogeneous ones, global Poincar´e duality is induced by a more refined Verdier selfduality isomorphism for this perverse sheaf. For such singularities, we prove furthermore that the pushforward of the constant sheaf of a nearby smooth deformation under the specialization map to the singular space splits off the intersection space complex as a direct summand. The complementary summand is the contribution of the singularity. Thus, we obtain for such hypersurfaces a mirror statement of the Beilinson-Bernstein-Deligne decomposition of the pushforward of the constant sheaf under an algebraic resolution map into the intersection sheaf plus contributions from the singularities.

We study the differential polynomial rings which are defined using the special geometry of the moduli spaces of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The higher genus topological string amplitudes are expressed as polynomials in the generators of these rings, giving them a global description in the moduli space. At particular loci, the amplitudes yield the generating functions of Gromov-Witten invariants. We show that these rings are isomorphic to the rings of quasi modular forms for threefolds with duality groups for which these are known. For the other cases, they provide generalizations thereof. We furthermore study an involution which acts on the quasi modular forms. We interpret it as a duality which exchanges two distinguished expansion loci of the topological string amplitudes in the moduli space. We construct these special polynomial rings and match them with known quasi modular forms for non-compact Calabi-Yau geometries and their mirrors including local $\mathbb{P}^2$ and local del Pezzo geometries with $E_5$, $E_6$, $E_7$ and $E_8$ type singularities. We provide the analogous special polynomial ring for the quintic.

This paper continues our previous study of Feynman integrals in configuration spaces and their algebro-geometric and motivic aspects. We consider here both massless and massive Feynman amplitudes, from the point of view of potential theory. We consider a variant of the wonderful compactification of configuration spaces that works simultaneously for all graphs with a given number of vertices and that also accounts for the external structure of Feynman graph. As in our previous work, we consider two version of the Feynman amplitude in configuration space, which we refer to as the real and complex versions. In the real version, we show that we can extend to the massive case a method of evaluating Feynman integrals, based on expansion in Gegenbauer polynomials, that we investigated previously in the massless case. In the complex setting, we show that we can use algebro-geometric methods to renormalize the Feynman amplitudes, so that the renormalized values of the Feynman integrals are given by periods of a mixed Tate motive. The regularization and renormalization procedure is based on pulling back the form to the wonderful compactification and replace it with a cohomologous one with logarithmic poles. A complex of forms with logarithmic poles, endowed with an operator of pole subtraction, determine a Rota-Baxter algebra on the wonderful compactifications. We can then apply the renormalization procedure via Birkhoff factorization, after interpreting the regularization as an algebra homomorphism from the Connes-Kreimer Hopf algebra of Feynman graphs to the Rota-Baxter algebra. We obtain in this setting a description of the renormalization group.We also extend the period interpretation to the case of Dirac fermions and gauge bosons.