The derived deformation theory of a point (Q2114182)

This article provides a comprehensive and detailed study of the derived deformation theory of modules over a noncommutative algebra. The classical (not derived), commutative and characteristic zero counterpart to this story is very well-known and admits a nice description in terms of local algebras, which serve as prorepresenting objects. For example, studying deformations of some \(k\)-scheme over a one-dimensional base, one finds the ring of formal power series \(k[[t]]\), which can be seen either as a pro-object in commutative Artin algebras, or as a commutative complete local \(k\)-algebra. In the setting of this paper, that is, modules over a noncommutative algebra, the situation is more complicated, since the category of pro-objects in connective Artin dgas does not admit this embedding as local algebras, forcing one to work with pro-Artin dgas. After an exposition of the model category theory and Koszul duality (Sections 3 and 4) in that setting, the author proceeds to presenting the pro-representing object in general, given by the `continuous nonunital Koszul dual' (Prop. 5.4.7). Section 6 is devoted to the problem of `deforming the point' mentioned by the title: describing the deformations of a one-dimensional module. It is shown that the usual Koszul dual (or more precisely, its pro-version) is a representing object for the problem of framed deformations, that is, of deforming the pair made up of the object and an isomorphism to \(k\). Using this result, the author recovers and extends some results of E. Segal, and gives a deformation-theoretic explanation of a certain quotient construction (Theorem 6.3.9). As mentioned before, in this derived noncommutative world, it becomes necessary to work with pro-objects, so Section 7 presents some technical results on the deformation theory in that setting. Finally, Section 8 deals with multi-pointed deformations, that is, tuples of deformations with some compatibility data, giving deformations of an object together with multiple augmentations. This is motivated by the appearance of such objects in the study of CY 3-folds; and the author presents a succinct, but rather complete, summary of what would change in the previous sections of the paper for these multi-pointed analogues. Reading this paper, I particularly enjoyed two parts, which I believe are of interest for the reader searching for precise summaries of results: in Section 4, when discussing Koszul duality, the author is very clear about which conditions must hold for certain quasi-isomorphisms involving the Koszul double dual to exist, see remarks 4.1.5--4.1.15. I think this will be of good use to whoever needs to use these constructions with algebras that fail the traditional finiteness conditions. Also, Section 5.1 presents a convenient summary of the main results involving the Deligne groupoid and the Maurer-Cartan simplicial set, which otherwise are spread around the literature spanning many years. The interested reader can find precise references for all these results in that section of this paper.