Quantization of the Lie bialgebra of string topology (Q621315)

The authors show that the reduced equivariant homology of the free loop space \(LM\) of a smooth, simply-connected closed oriented manifold \(M\) has a Lie bialgebra structure which can be quantized. To state this more precisely, the authors define a differentially graded (DG) open Frobenius algebra of degree \(m\) over a field \(k\) of characteristic zero to be a commutative DG algebra \(V\) whose product has degree \(-m\) which is also a cocommutative DG coalgebra with a compatability condition involving \(m\). They show: (1) Let \(V\) be a counital coaugmented simply-connected DG open Frobenius algebra over \(k\). Then the reduced cyclic homology of \(V\) has a natural involutive (the product followed by the coproduct vanishes) Lie bialgebra structure, and there is a Hopf algebra algebra over \(k[[h]], h\) a formal variable, which quantizes this Lie bialgebra. (2) If \(M\) is a smooth simply-connected manifold, then there is a counital coaugmented simply-connected DG open Frobenius algebra over \(Q\) which models the chain complex of \(M\), and the reduced cyclic homology of \(V\) is isomorphic to the reduced equivariant homology of \(LM\). Hence the reduced equivariant homology of \(LM\) has a Lie bialgebra structure, quantized by the Hopf algebra of (1). The construction is motivated by \textit{V. G. Turaev}'s Lie bialgebra structure on the free homotopy classes of closed curves on a Riemann surface [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 24, No. 6, 635--704 (1991; Zbl 0758.57011)], and the quantization is modeled after \textit{T. Schedler}'s quantization of the necklace Lie bialgebra [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2005, No. 12, 725--760 (2005; Zbl 1079.16028)].