Construction of miniversal deformations of Lie algebras (Q1284048)

Starting with the remark that the universal deformation of a Lie algebra \(L\) in general does not exist, the authors' aim at studying versal deformations, that lead them to work with cohomologies \(H^2(L,L)\), \(H^3(L,L)\), obstructions and Massey operations. Considering kernels of subsequent obstructions the authors construct the formal deformation \(\eta\) and prove the theorem: If \(\dim H^2(L,L)< \infty\) then the formal deformation \(\eta\) is a miniversal deformation of \(L\). They show that the base of \(\eta\) is the zero locus of a formal map \(H^2(L,L)\to H^3(L,L)\) and provide a scheme of computation for this map. The computations made previously by the first author and in their joint paper open the way to construct \(\eta\) explicitly for the Lie algebra of polynomial vector fields \(p(x) d/dx\), \(p(0)= p'(0)= 0\). The construction is written down as the last part of the article.