Pre-Courant algebroids (Q2422447)

Courant algebroids were introduced by \textit{Z. Liu} et al. [J. Differ. Geom. 45, No. 3, 547--574 (1997; Zbl 0885.58030)]. They play a prominent role in the BV-BRST and BFV formalism of gauge theory. Discarding the Jacobi identity gives rise to pre-Courant algebroids, examples of which appear in 3-dimensional sigma models, parabolic geometry and Cartan geometry. In this interesting paper, the authors study pre-Courant algebroids using super geometry. They show that pre-Courant algebroids are in one to one correspondence with symplectic Lie-2-groupoids, which are introduced in this work. Also that sub-Dirac structures on pre-Courant algebroids are almost Lie algebroids. Further on sub-Dirac structures, it is shown that there exists a quasi-cochain map between the naïve quasi-cochain complex and the standard quasi-cochain complex. Last, the authors study higher-order tangent bundles of pre-Courant algebroids. Specifically, they show that VB-Courant algebroids are natural examples of what they call weighted pre-Courant algebroids. Using the language of supermanifolds makes all these objects much easier to work with.