Derived brackets (Q703989)

The author describes several differential geometric settings that illustrate the notion of derived bracket introduced by herself [Ann. Inst. Fourier 46, No. 5, 1243--1274 (1996; Zbl 0858.17027)]. We recall that, given a graded differential Lie algebra \((V,[\cdot,\cdot],D)\) with the bracket of degree~\(n\), the corresponding derived bracket is the bilinear mapping \([\cdot,\cdot]_{(D)}: V\times V\to V\) defined by \([a,b]_{(D)}=(-1)^{n+| a|+1}=[Da,b]\) for all \(a,b\in V\), where \(| a|\) stands for the degree of~\(a\). The paper is written in a clear style, and includes many instructive historical remarks, as well as a rather extensive list of references.