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I am struggling to understand section 2.1., page 20, of these notes by Kontsevich and Soibelman. They read (my comments and questions are inserted in bold):

2.1.Local systems Let $X$ be a topological space (say, a CW complex), $G$ a Lie group. We denote by $G^{\delta}$ the group $G$ equipped with the discrete topology. We will refer to $G^{\delta}$-bundles as "local systems". [Are $G^{\delta}$-bundles the same as principal $G^{\delta}$-bundles?]. One can see three different descriptions of local systems.

A. Sheaf theoretic A local system is given by a covering $U_i$ of $X$ by open sets, transition functions $\gamma_{ij}:U_i\cap U_j\rightarrow G$ [Is $\gamma_{ij}$ required to be continuous and if so with respect to which topology?] which are locally constant and satisfy the $1$-cocycle condition $g_{ij}g_{jk}g_{ki}=id$ [This should probably read $\gamma_{ij}\gamma_{jk}\gamma_{ki}$ and not $g_{ij}g_{jk}g_{ki}$?]. Equivalence of local systems is given by a common refinements of two coverings and a family of maps to $G$ which conjugate one system of transition functions to the other.

B. Group theoretic. Suppose that $X$ is connected. Then equivalence classes of local systems are in one-to-one correspondence with the equivalence classes of homomorphisms of the fundamental group $\pi_1(X)$ to $G$. (If $X$ is not connected, one can use the fundamental groupoid instead of the fundamental group.)

  • How does this tie in with the definition of local system here? The definition looks similar, but not quite the same.

  • How are definitions A and B equivalent?

References welcome.

Margaret
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    Why don't you read Steenrod's book, he covers this material quite well and you do not have to deal with typos. – Moishe Kohan Nov 02 '23 at 14:18
  • @MoisheKohan Do you mean the paper Homology with local coefficients (1943)? – Margaret Nov 02 '23 at 14:30
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    I mean "Topology of fiber bundles". – Moishe Kohan Nov 02 '23 at 14:40
  • @MoisheKohan Thank you a lot! Kontsevich' local system in Steenrod's terminology is a system of coordinate transformations in $X$ with values in $G$ (see Definition 3.1. on page 14. of your recommended book.) Is Steenrod's terminology still common today? Also, how is this definition related to sheaves? – Margaret Nov 02 '23 at 21:11

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