In the late 1980s, Friedlander and Parshall studied the representations of a
family of algebras which were obtained as deformations of the distribution
algebra of the first Frobenius kernel of an algebraic group. The representation
theory of these algebras tells us much about the representation theory of Lie
algebras in positive characteristic. We develop an analogue of this family of
algebras for the distribution algebras of the higher Frobenius kernels,
answering a 30 year old question posed by Friedlander and Parshall. We also
examine their representation theory in the case of the special linear group.Comment: 30 pages. Version 2: Minor corrections. Version 3: Changes to
Sections 4 and 7 and corrections throughout. Version 4: Changes to Section 7
and other edits throughout. Accepted for publication by the Journal of the
Mathematical Society of Japa