Higher operations on the Hochschild complex (Q1907468)

In the paper some of new algebraic structures are studied which have been derived recently in quantum field (string) theory (Witten, Zwiebach, 1992; Zwiebach, 1993) as well as in the theory of vertex operator algebras (Lian, Zuckerman, 1993). It is shown that the Hochschild cochain complex \(V=C^*(A)=C^*(A,A)\) of an associative algebra \(A\) with appropriately chosen dot product and bracket operations may be considered as a homotopy \(G\)-algebra, i.e. as having the natural structure of a graded Poisson algebra \(G\) (Gerstenhaber algebra, 1963). Some open problems concerning the connection between Hochschild cohomology and an algebra over a chain operad of the little squares operad (Cohen, 1976; Deligne, 1993) are also briefly discussed.