Poisson actions up to homotopy and their quantization

Symmetries of Poisson manifolds are in general quantized just to symmetries up to homotopy of the quantized algebra of functions. It is therefore interesting to study symmetries up to homotopy of Poisson manifolds. We notice that they are equivalent to Poisson principal bundles and describe their quantization to symmetries up to homotopy of the quantized algebras of functions.Comment: 8 page

Linear and multiplicative 2-forms

We study the relationship between multiplicative 2-forms on Lie groupoids and linear 2-forms on Lie algebroids, which leads to a new approach to the infinitesimal description of multiplicative 2-forms and to the integration of twisted Dirac manifolds.Comment: to appear in Letters in Mathematical Physic

Dressing Cosets

The account of the Poisson-Lie T-duality is presented for the case when the action of the duality group on a target is not free. At the same time a generalization of the picture is given when the duality group does not even act on \si-model targets but only on their phase spaces. The outcome is a huge class of dualizable targets generically having no local isometries or Poisson-Lie symmetries whatsoever.Comment: 11 pages, LaTe

Open Strings and D-branes in WZNW model

An abundance of the Poisson-Lie symmetries of the WZNW models is uncovered. They give rise, via the Poisson-Lie $T$-duality, to a rich structure of the dual pairs of $D$-branes configurations in group manifolds. The $D$-branes are characterized by their shapes and certain two-forms living on them. The WZNW path integral for the interacting $D$-branes diagrams is unambiguously defined if the two-form on the $D$-brane and the WZNW three-form on the group form an integer-valued cocycle in the relative singular cohomology of the group manifold with respect to its $D$-brane submanifold. An example of the $SU(N)$ WZNW model is studied in some detail.Comment: 28 pages, LaTe

Hypercommutative operad as a homotopy quotient of BV

We give an explicit formula for a quasi-isomorphism between the operads Hycomm (the homology of the moduli space of stable genus 0 curves) and BV/$\Delta$ (the homotopy quotient of Batalin-Vilkovisky operad by the BV-operator). In other words we derive an equivalence of Hycomm-algebras and BV-algebras enhanced with a homotopy that trivializes the BV-operator. These formulas are given in terms of the Givental graphs, and are proved in two different ways. One proof uses the Givental group action, and the other proof goes through a chain of explicit formulas on resolutions of Hycomm and BV. The second approach gives, in particular, a homological explanation of the Givental group action on Hycomm-algebras.Comment: minor corrections added, to appear in Comm.Math.Phy

Dual branes in topological sigma models over Lie groups. BF-theory and non-factorizable Lie bialgebras

We complete the study of the Poisson-Sigma model over Poisson-Lie groups. Firstly, we solve the models with targets $G$ and $G^*$ (the dual group of the Poisson-Lie group $G$) corresponding to a triangular $r$-matrix and show that the model over $G^*$ is always equivalent to BF-theory. Then, given an arbitrary $r$-matrix, we address the problem of finding D-branes preserving the duality between the models. We identify a broad class of dual branes which are subgroups of $G$ and $G^*$, but not necessarily Poisson-Lie subgroups. In particular, they are not coisotropic submanifolds in the general case and what is more, we show that by means of duality transformations one can go from coisotropic to non-coisotropic branes. This fact makes clear that non-coisotropic branes are natural boundary conditions for the Poisson-Sigma model.Comment: 24 pages; JHEP style; Final versio

Poisson-Lie T-duality: Open Strings and D-branes

Global issues of the Poisson-Lie T-duality are addressed. It is shown that oriented open strings propagating on a group manifold $G$ are dual to $D$-brane - anti-$D$-brane pairs propagating on the dual group manifold \ti G. The $D$-branes coincide with the symplectic leaves of the standard Poisson structure induced on the dual group \ti G by the dressing action of the group $G$. T-duality maps the momentum of the open string into the mutual distance of the $D$-branes in the pair. The whole picture is then extended to the full modular space $M(D)$ of the Poisson-Lie equivalent \si-models which is the space of all Manin triples of a given Drinfeld double.T-duality rotates the zero modes of pairs of $D$-branes living on targets belonging to $M(D)$. In this more general case the $D$-branes are preimages of symplectic leaves in certain Poisson homogeneous spaces of their targets and, as such, they are either all even or all odd dimensional.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX (references added

M. Kontsevich's graph complex and the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra

We show that the zeroth cohomology of M. Kontsevich's graph complex is isomorphic to the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra grt_1. The map is explicitly described. This result has applications to deformation quantization and Duflo theory. We also compute the homotopy derivations of the Gerstenhaber operad. They are parameterized by grt_1, up to one class (or two, depending on the definitions). More generally, the homotopy derivations of the (non-unital) E_n operads may be expressed through the cohomology of a suitable graph complex. Our methods also give a second proof of a result of H. Furusho, stating that the pentagon equation for grt_1-elements implies the hexagon equation

2d Gauge Theories and Generalized Geometry

We show that in the context of two-dimensional sigma models minimal coupling of an ordinary rigid symmetry Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ leads naturally to the appearance of the "generalized tangent bundle" $\mathbb{T}M \equiv TM \oplus T^*M$ by means of composite fields. Gauge transformations of the composite fields follow the Courant bracket, closing upon the choice of a Dirac structure $D \subset \mathbb{T}M$ (or, more generally, the choide of a "small Dirac-Rinehart sheaf" $\cal{D}$), in which the fields as well as the symmetry parameters are to take values. In these new variables, the gauge theory takes the form of a (non-topological) Dirac sigma model, which is applicable in a more general context and proves to be universal in two space-time dimensions: A gauging of $\mathfrak{g}$ of a standard sigma model with Wess-Zumino term exists, \emph{iff} there is a prolongation of the rigid symmetry to a Lie algebroid morphism from the action Lie algebroid $M \times \mathfrak{g}\to M$ into $D\to M$ (or the algebraic analogue of the morphism in the case of $\cal{D}$). The gauged sigma model results from a pullback by this morphism from the Dirac sigma model, which proves to be universal in two-spacetime dimensions in this sense.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures; To appear in Journal of High Energy Physic