Nijenhuis structures on Courant algebroids (Q420561)

This paper deals with Nijenhuis structures on Courant algebroids in order to study the infinitesimal deformations of Courant algebroids. Let us recall that Nijenhuis operators were introduced by Fuchssteiner and developped by Carinera, Grabowski and Marmo. These authors have also introduced Courant algebroids for their role in the theory of deformations. In this work, the author first recalls some results on Nijenhuis structures on Leibniz algebras and Leibniz algebroids. Then it is proved that the Nijenhuis torsion of a skew-symmetric endomorphism, \(N\), has the usual properties of tensoriality and skew-symmetry when \(N^2\) is proportional to the identity. The author considers also the case of Courant algebroids that are the double of a Lie bialgebroid. It is shown that when \(N^2\) is proportional to the identity, the torsion of the corresponding skew-symmetric endomorphism of the double \(A+A*\) is, in a certain sense, the sum of the torsion of \(N\) and the torsion of its transpose. The role of the Nijenhuis tensors in the theory of Dirac pairs is finally discussed and will be the subject of further papers.