Invariance of the BFV-complex

The BFV-formalism was introduced to handle classical systems, equipped with symmetries. It associates a differential graded Poisson algebra to any coisotropic submanifold $S$ of a Poisson manifold $(M,\Pi)$. However the assignment (coisotropic submanifold) $\leadsto$ (differential graded Poisson algebra) is not canonical, since in the construction several choices have to be made. One has to fix: 1. an embedding of the normal bundle $NS$ of $S$ into $M$, 2. a connection $\nabla$ on $NS$ and 3. a special element $\Omega$. We show that different choices of the connection and $\Omega$ -- but with the tubular neighbourhood fixed -- lead to isomorphic differential graded Poisson algebras. If the tubular neighbourhood is changed too, invariance can be restored at the level of germs.Comment: 21 pages; improved version, to appear in Pacific J. Mat

Eulerian idempotent, pre-Lie logarithm and combinatorics of trees

The aim of this paper is to bring together the three objects in the title. Recall that, given a Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$, the Eulerian idempotent is a canonical projection from the enveloping algebra $U(\mathfrak{g})$ to $\mathfrak{g}$. The Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff product and the Magnus expansion can both be expressed in terms of the Eulerian idempotent, which makes it interesting to establish explicit formulas for the latter. We show how to reduce the computation of the Eulerian idempotent to the computation of a logarithm in a certain pre-Lie algebra of planar, binary, rooted trees. The problem of finding formulas for the pre-Lie logarithm, which is interesting in its own right -- being related to operad theory, numerical analysis and renormalization -- is addressed using techniques inspired by umbral calculus. As a consequence of our analysis, we find formulas both for the Eulerian idempotent and the pre-Lie logarithm in terms of the combinatorics of trees.Comment: Preliminary version. Comments are welcome

How to discretize the differential forms on the interval

We provide explicit quasi-isomorphisms between the following three algebraic structures associated to the unit interval: i) the commutative dg algebra of differential forms, ii) the non-commutative dg algebra of simplicial cochains and iii) the Whitney forms, equipped with a homotopy commutative and homotopy associative, i.e. $C_\infty$, algebra structure. Our main interest lies in a natural `discretization' $C_\infty$ quasi-isomorphism $\varphi$ from differential forms to Whitney forms. We establish a uniqueness result that implies that $\varphi$ coincides with the morphism from homotopy transfer, and obtain several explicit formulas for $\varphi$, all of which are related to the Magnus expansion. In particular, we recover combinatorial formulas for the Magnus expansion due to Mielnik and Pleba\'nski.Comment: 29 pages, extended abstract, typos fixe

Higher holonomies: comparing two constructions

We compare two different constructions of higher dimensional parallel transport. On the one hand, there is the two dimensional parallel transport associated to 2-connections on 2-bundles studied by Baez-Schreiber, Faria Martins-Picken and Schreiber-Waldorf. On the other hand, there are the higher holonomies associated to flat superconnections as studied by Igusa, Block-Smith and Arias Abad-Schaetz. We first explain how by truncating the latter construction one obtains examples of the former. Then we prove that the 2-dimensional holonomies provided by the two approaches coincide.Comment: comments are welcome

Introduction to supergeometry

These notes are based on a series of lectures given by the first author at the school of `Poisson 2010', held at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro. They contain an exposition of the theory of super- and graded manifolds, cohomological vector fields, graded symplectic structures, reduction and the AKSZ-formalism.Comment: Lecture notes of a course held at the school Poisson 2010 at IMPA, July 2010; 21 pages; references improve

A survey on stability and rigidity results for Lie algebras

We give simple and unified proofs of the known stability and rigidity results for Lie algebras, Lie subalgebras and Lie algebra homomorphisms. Moreover, we investigate when a Lie algebra homomorphism is stable under all automorphisms of the codomain (including outer automorphisms).Comment: 20 page