Tautological formal Frobenius manifold structures on a Frobenius algebra (Q1574765)

A Frobenius algebra is a \(k\)-algebra with a symmetric inner product satisfying \(g(X\cdot Y, Z)=g(X,Y,Z)\). One may define structure constants associated to a basis by \(\phi_{\{ abc\}}=g(e_a\cdot e_b, e_c)\). The Frobenius algebra may be recovered from the structure constants. The recent interest in Frobenius algebras comes from the fact that these algebras are in one-to-one correspondence with \(1+1\) topological quantum field theories. The WDVV equation is a differential equation for a potential function. The third derivatives of this potential function are the structure constants of a Frobenius algebra. These ideas were applied to the problem of counting rational curves with spectacular success [\textit{M. Kopntsevich} and \textit{Yu. Manin}, Commun. Math. Phys. 164, 525-562 (1994; Zbl 0853.14020), \textit{P. Candelas} et al., Nucl. Phys. B 359, 21-74 (1991) and in: Essays on Mirror Manifolds, (S.-T. Yau (ed.), AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math. 9, 31-95 (1998; Zbl 0904.32019)]. The Gromov-Witten invariants of a symplectic manifold may be used to define a Frobenius algebra called the quantum cohomology. In this paper, the author constructs an \(n\) parameter deformation of any rank \(n\) Frobenius algebra. He then defines the ``quantum cohomology'' of a connected oriented manifold to be the deformation of the Frobenius algebra structure given by the intersection pairing. Zhou ``quantum cohomology'' is not a generalization of quantum cohomology in the strict sense since the \(W\) ``quantum cohomology'' of \({\mathbb C}P^N\) is not the same as the Gromov-Witten quantum cohomology of \({\mathbb C}P^N\).The former is completely determined by the intersection pairing, while the latter contains non-trivial information about the number of rational curves.