No label defined (Q4789239)

\textit{Leibniz algebroid}, introduced by Ibáñez, de León, Marrero and Padrón [J. Phys. A 32, No. 46, 8129--8144 (1999; Zbl 0962.53047)], is a version of \textit{Leibniz algebra} structure on sections of a vector bundle. Leibniz algebra, introduced by J.-L. Loday [Enseign. Math. 39, 269--293 (1993; Zbl 0806.55009)], is in turn a weaker version of a Lie algebra, where the assumption of skew-symmetry of the bracket has been dropped. There is a nice cohomology theory of Leibniz algebras based on the formula of a coboundary operator which is formally similar to that of Chevalley-Eilenberg for Lie algebras. The author tries to develop an analog of the Cartan differential calculus for Lie algebroids by means of the corresponding coboundary operator for a Leibniz algebroid on a vector bundle \(E\) over \(M\). This time, however, `differential forms' are not sections of \(\bigwedge^nE^*\) but \(\mathbb R\)-multilinear maps on sections of \(E\) with values in \(C^\infty(M)\). Since these maps are not \(C^\infty(M)\)-linear, the corresponding \(n\)-cochains \(C^n(Sec(E),C^\infty(M))\) have no clear geometric interpretation for \(n>1\) and the whole approach looks too naive. One of the main theorems states that there is a one-to-one correspondence between Leibniz algebroid structures on \(E\) and coboundary operators on \(C^\bullet(Sec(E),C^\infty(M))\) satisfying certain properties. This theorem, however, seems to be wrong, since these particular properties concern only the cochains of small degree and there is no one ensuring that the extension to all cochains is unique, like the derivation property for the de Rham differential. Also another crucial result, stating that there is a sort of Schouten bracket for Leibniz algebroid, has no strict proof in the paper. In the reviewer's opinion, the bracket with prescribed properties exists, roughly speaking, only when our Leibniz algebroid is, in fact, a Lie algebroid. This would mean that the paper is false in its principal parts. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0996.00031].