Leibniz cohomology and connections on differentiable manifolds (Q2665772)

The main theme of the article under review is the use of Leibniz algebra techniques in differential geometry. A (left) \textit{Leibniz algebra} is here a vector space with a bilinear operation \(\circ\) which satisfies \[x\circ(y\circ z)=(x\circ y)\circ z+y\circ(x\circ z),\] i.e. the operation is a derivation of itself. Special cases of Leibniz algebras are Lie algebras, and one may thus apply Leibniz techniques to Lie algebras of vector fields on manifolds. \par Let \(M\) be an \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold equipped with an affine connection \(\nabla\). The author views \(\nabla(X\otimes Y):=\nabla_X(Y)\) as a \(2\)-cochain in the Leibniz complex of the Lie algebra of vector fields with values in the adjoint representation. The main result (Corollary 2.5) of the first part of the article is a formula for the coboundary of the above \(2\)-cochain for the Levi-Civita connection on \(M\) in terms of the curvature tensor. This formula permits to deduce (Theorem 2.7) that in case the \(2\)-cochain is a cocycle, the Laplace operator in a point \(p\) is just the multiplication by the scalar curvature divided by \(n\) and evaluation in \(p\). In a second part, the author computes the adjoint Leibniz cohomology of the affine Lie algebra \({\mathfrak h}_n\) which is the usual extension of the orthogonal Lie algebra \({\mathfrak s}{\mathfrak o}(n,{\mathbb R})\) by the translations. The computation is based on invariant theory and Pirashvili's computation techniques [\textit{T. Pirashvili}, Ann. Inst. Fourier 44, No. 2, 401--411 (1994; Zbl 0821.17023)].\par The first step is the Hochschild-Serre formula for the Chevalley-Eilenberg cohomology of \({\mathfrak h}_n\) with trivial and adjoint coefficients. For this computation the author uses invariant theory computations done by \textit{G. R. Biyogmam} [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 215, No. 8, 1889--1901 (2011; Zbl 1247.17014)]. The second step is to put these cohomology spaces into the Pirashvili long exact sequence in order to deduce the cohomology \(HR^*({\mathfrak h}_n)\). Then this cohomology is inserted into the Pirashvili spectral sequence (together with an inductive knowledge of low degree \(HL^*({\mathfrak h}_n,{\mathfrak h}_n)\)) in order to deduce \(H_{\mathrm{rel}}^*({\mathfrak h}_n,{\mathfrak h}_n)\). In the last step, a long exact sequence of Pirashvili permits from here to deduce \(HL^*({\mathfrak h}_n,{\mathfrak h}_n)\).