Quadri-algebras

We introduce the notion of quadri-algebras. These are associative algebras for which the multiplication can be decomposed as the sum of four operations in a certain coherent manner. We present several examples of quadri-algebras: the algebra of permutations, the shuffle algebra, tensor products of dendriform algebras. We show that a pair of commuting Baxter operators on an associative algebra gives rise to a canonical quadri-algebra structure on the underlying space of the algebra. The main example is provided by the algebra End(A) of linear endomorphisms of an infinitesimal bialgebra A. This algebra carries a canonical pair of commuting Baxter operators: \beta(T)=T\ast\id and \gamma(T)=\id\ast T, where $\ast$ denotes the convolution of endomorphisms. It follows that End(A) is a quadri-algebra, whenever A is an infinitesimal bialgebra. We also discuss commutative quadri-algebras and state some conjectures on the free quadri-algebra

Free Rota-Baxter algebras and rooted trees

A Rota-Baxter algebra, also known as a Baxter algebra, is an algebra with a linear operator satisfying a relation, called the Rota-Baxter relation, that generalizes the integration by parts formula. Most of the studies on Rota-Baxter algebras have been for commutative algebras. Two constructions of free commutative Rota-Baxter algebras were obtained by Rota and Cartier in the 1970s and a third one by Keigher and one of the authors in the 1990s in terms of mixable shuffles. Recently, noncommutative Rota-Baxter algebras have appeared both in physics in connection with the work of Connes and Kreimer on renormalization in perturbative quantum field theory, and in mathematics related to the work of Loday and Ronco on dendriform dialgebras and trialgebras. This paper uses rooted trees and forests to give explicit constructions of free noncommutative Rota--Baxter algebras on modules and sets. This highlights the combinatorial nature of Rota--Baxter algebras and facilitates their further study. As an application, we obtain the unitarization of Rota-Baxter algebras.Comment: 23 page

Rota-Baxter Algebras and Dendriform Algebras

In this paper we study the adjoint functors between the category of Rota-Baxter algebras and the categories of dendriform dialgebras and trialgebras. In analogy to the well-known theory of the adjoint functor between the category of associative algebras and Lie algebras, we first give an explicit construction of free Rota-Baxter algebras and then apply it to obtain universal enveloping Rota-Baxter algebras of dendriform dialgebras and trialgebras. We further show that free dendriform dialgebras and trialgebras, as represented by binary planar trees and planar trees, are canonical subalgebras of free Rota-Baxter algebras.Comment: Typos corrected and the last section on analog of Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem deleted for a gap in the proo

Three osculating walkers

We consider three directed walkers on the square lattice, which move simultaneously at each tick of a clock and never cross. Their trajectories form a non-crossing configuration of walks. This configuration is said to be osculating if the walkers never share an edge, and vicious (or: non-intersecting) if they never meet. We give a closed form expression for the generating function of osculating configurations starting from prescribed points. This generating function turns out to be algebraic. We also relate the enumeration of osculating configurations with prescribed starting and ending points to the (better understood) enumeration of non-intersecting configurations. Our method is based on a step by step decomposition of osculating configurations, and on the solution of the functional equation provided by this decomposition