Drinfeld associators, braid groups and explicit solutions of the Kashiwara-Vergne equations (Q633562)

\textit{M. Kashiwara} and \textit{M. Vergne} [Invent. Math. 47, 249--272 (1978; Zbl 0404.22012)] conjectured that a certain pair of equations related to the Campbell-Baker-Hausdorff formula has solutions. This conjecture was solved by \textit{A. Alekseev} and \textit{E. Meinrenken}, [Invent. Math. 164, No. 3, 615--634 (2006; Zbl 1096.22007)]. The present paper describes an alternative approach to this conjecture using Drinfeld associators. The authors give a simple and explicit formula for a map from the set of Drinfeld associators to the set of solutions of the (formal) Kashiwara-Vergne conjecture. It is further shown that this map is a morphism of torsors with respect to the action of prounipotent groups. The original solution is obtained by specializing to Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov associator. Proofs significantly use knot theory and nontrivial combinatorics.