On the equivalence between continuous and differential deformation theories (Q675829)

This paper is devoted to the study of deformations of the algebra \(\mathcal A\) of complex valued smooth functions on \(\mathbb{R}^N\). More precisely, the main aim is to compare differential deformations (corresponding to Hochschild cocycles which are differential operators) to continuous deformations (which correspond to continuous Hochschild cocycles). Using the algebra of polynomial functions as an intermediate step, the author explicitly relates the continuous and the differential Hochschild cohomology groups of \(\mathcal A\) with coefficients in \(\mathcal A\). Using this, he shows that any continuous deformation of \(\mathcal A\) is equivalent to a differential one, and two differential deformations are continuously equivalent if and only if they are equivalent in the differential sense. In the second part, the author applies similar methods to the algebra of formal power series. The results are then applied to questions of deformations of formal groups. In particular, it is proved that any preferred quantization of a Lie-Poisson structure on a formal group is actually a differential deformation.