On the cohomology algebra of free loop spaces (Q5952745)

The authors construct a product on the normalized Hochschild complex of a graded algebra if it is strongly homotopy commutative (rather than the usual condition of being strictly commutative). The application they have in mind is the algebra of normalized singular cochains on a simply connected space \(X\) with coefficients in a field \(k\), \(N^*(X;k)\), which admits a natural strongly homotopy commutative algebra structure by work of \textit{H. J. Munkholm} [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 5, 1-50 (1974; Zbl 0294.55011)]. \textit{J. D. S. Jones} has shown [Invent. Math. 87, 403-423 (1987; Zbl 0644.55005)] that \(HH_*(N^*(X;k))\cong H^*(X^{S^1};k)\) as graded vector spaces, and the authors show that their product on the left term agrees with the usual cup product on the right. Using a notion of equivalence of strongly homotopy commutative algebras, they are able to replace \(N^*(X;k)\) with commutative DGAs in various situations to facilitate calculations. In particular they give results on the multiplicative structure of \(H^*(X^{S^1};\mathbb{F}_p)\) for \(X=S^{2n}\), \(\mathbb{C} P^n\), and also \(X=\Sigma\mathbb{C} P^n\) for \(p=2\) and \(X=G_2\) for \(p=5\).