A structure theorem for Leibniz homology (Q713288)

(Left) Leibniz algebras are vector spaces \({\mathfrak h}\) equipped with a bilinear bracket which satisfies for all \(x,y,z\in{\mathfrak h}\) \[ [x,[y,z]]=[[x,y],z]+[y,[x,z]]. \] The bracket is not supposed to be antisymmetric, thus Leibniz algebras are more general than Lie algebras. They come with their own (co)homology theory which is based on the tensor powers of \({\mathfrak h}\) instead of the (co)homology theory of Lie algebras which is based on the exterior powers of the Lie algebra. As Lie algebras are special cases of Leibniz algebras, it makes sense to compute the Leibniz (co)homology of a Lie algebra. In the article under review, the author presents a general scheme for the computation of the Leibniz homology of a Lie algebra \({\mathfrak h}\) which is the abelian extension of a simple real (finite-dimensional) Lie algebra \({\mathfrak g}\) by an abelian ideal \(I\). He shows that under mild restrictions, the Leibniz homology of \({\mathfrak h}\) is the tensor product \[ HL_*({\mathfrak h})=[\Lambda^*(I)]^{\mathfrak g}\otimes T(K_*) \] of the \({\mathfrak g}\)-invariants of the exterior algebra on \(I\) by the tensor algebra of some space \(K_*\) which arises as the kernel of a map between Lie algebra homologies. As an application, the author shows how to compute the homology for affine extensions of classical Lie algebras with \(I={\mathbb R}^n\), recovering known (and obtaining new) results.