Veronese powers of operads and pure homotopy algebras (Q2210176)

The Veronese subrings of a weight-graded ring are well-known constructions which have interesting homological properties (see [\textit{J. Backelin}, Lect. Notes Math. 1183, 79--100 (1986; Zbl 0588.13011); J. Algebra 146, No. 1, 1--17 (1992; Zbl 0758.13006); \textit{D. Eisenbud} et al., Adv. Math. 109, No. 2, 168--187 (1994; Zbl 0839.13013)]). If \(R = \bigoplus R_{(i)}\) is such a ring, then its \(d\)th Veronese subring is defined by \(R^{(d)} = \bigoplus_{j \geq 0} R_{(jd)}\). In the paper under review, the authors study the generalization of that notion to operads. They define two kinds of Veronese powers of a weight graded operad \(\mathcal{P} = \{ \mathcal{P}(n) \}_{n \geq 0} = \bigl\{ \bigoplus_{i \geq 0} \mathcal{P}_{(i)}(n) \bigr\}\). The naïve Veronese power \(V_d \mathcal{P}\) is defined \((V_d \mathcal{P})(n) := \bigoplus_{j \geq 0} \mathcal{P}_{(kd)}(n)\). It is directly analogous to the notion of Veronese subrings. However, it does not satisfy the properties that one would expect from Veronese powers. On the other hand, the \(d\)th Veronese power \(\mathcal{P}^{[d]}\), defined as the suboperad of \(\mathcal{P}\) generated by \(\mathcal{P}_{(d)}\), is also analogous to the classical definition (if the initial ring is generated in weight \(1\)). The two notions coincide under a technical criterion given in Proposition 3.9. After introducing the two notions, the authors show that \(\mathcal{P}^{[d]}\) has good homological properties, in that e.g. if the ideal of relations of \(\mathcal{P}\) has a quadratic Gröbner basis of a certain form, then \(\mathcal{P}^{[d]}\) is Koszul for all \(d\). However, not all homological properties satisfied by Veronese subrings are satisfied by Veronese powers, including the improvement of defining relations, the improvement of the slope of the off-diagonal homology of the bar construction (see Section 3.6). The authors also investigate how the notion of Veronese powers are related to various categories of preexisting \(n\)-ary algebras. They show that \(V_2(\mathcal{A}s) = \mathcal{A}s^{[d]}\) (where \(\mathcal{A}s\) encodes associative algebras) is the operad encoding totally associative triple systems, i.e., objects \(A\) endowed by a trilinear operation \((-,-,-)\) such that \[(a,b,(c,d,e)) = (a,(b,c,d),e) = ((a,b,c),d,e).\] They prove similar statements for commutative and Lie algebras, which allows them to prove that the operad of Lie triple systems is Koszul. Moreover, they conjecture that Jordan triple systems and preLie triple systems can also be described as algebras over the Veronese powers of the relevant operad. In the final section, they study ``mock'' homotopy Lie algebras and mock \(n\)-ary Lie algebras, that is, ungraded \(L_\infty\)-algebras (resp. ungraded \(n\)-ary Lie algebras). They show that despite a common belief throughout the literature, mock Lie algebras are poorly behaved, as e.g. the operad encoding them is not Koszul.