Derived string topology and the Eilenberg-Moore spectral sequence (Q891183)

The article under review studies the behavior of string topology operations with respect to the Eilenberg--Moore spectral sequence, in particular in connection with Hochschild cohomology. Specifically, the authors study the pullback \[ L_NM = M^I\times_{M\times M} N, \] where \(M^I\) denotes the path space and \(N \to M\) is an arbitrary map. For \(N =M\), this recovers the free loop space and for \(N\) a point, this is the usual loop space. The standing assumption is that \(N\) is a simply connected Gorenstein space and \(M\) is simply connected. Here, Gorenstein spaces are a generalization of Poincaré duality spaces, including all classifying spaces of connected Lie groups. (These were introduced by Y. Félix, S. Halperin, J.-C. Thomas in [\textit{Y. Félix} et al., Adv. Math. 71, No. 1, 92--112 (1988; Zbl 0659.57011)]). In this case, the homology of \(L_NM\) with field coefficients carries a product, which is associative if \(N\) is a Poincaré duality space. If \(N=M\) is a manifold, this product recovers the classical Chas-Sullivan product. The main theorem proves that the Eilenberg--More spectral sequence associated with the defining pullback for \(L_NM\) has (up to shift) \(E^2\)-term \(HH^*(H^*(M); H_*(N))\) and converges multiplicatively to \(H_*(L_NM)\) (up to shift), where homology is with field coefficients. If \(N\) is actually a Poincaré duality space, the \(E^2\)-term is isomorphic to \(HH^*(H^*(M); H^*(N))\). Computational examples are given in the sequel [\textit{K. Kuribayashi} et al., Topology Appl. 164, 24--44 (2014; Zbl 1283.55004)]. While this result is stated purely in terms of (co)homology, the article under review actually proves a lot of chain level results, explaining the word `derived' in the title. In particular, the product structure on \(H_*(L_NM)\) is actually defined on the chain level. One further result using chains is the following: Let \(A_{PL}(M)\) be the commutative differential graded algebra of rational \(PL\)-chains. Then \[ H_{p+n}(L_NM; \mathbb{Q}) \cong HH^{-p}(A_{PL}(M); A_{PL}(N)) \] if \(N\) is not only Gorenstein, but a Poincaré duality space. This generalizes previous results for \(M=N\).