Abstract
We introduce a new formalism of differential operators for a general associative algebra A. It replaces Grothendieck’s notion of differential operators on a commutative algebra in such a way that derivations of the commutative algebra are replaced by \({\mathbb{D}{\rm er}(A)}\), the bimodule of double derivations. Our differential operators act not on the algebra A itself but rather on \({\mathcal{F}(A)}\), a certain ‘Fock space’ associated to any noncommutative algebra A in a functorial way. The corresponding algebra \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))}\) of differential operators is filtered and gr \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))}\), the associated graded algebra, is commutative in some ‘wheeled’ sense. The resulting ‘wheeled’ Poisson structure on gr \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))}\) is closely related to the double Poisson structure on \({T_{A} \mathbb{D}{\rm er}(A)}\) introduced by Van den Bergh. Specifically, we prove that gr \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))\cong\mathcal{F}(T_{A}(\mathbb{D}{\rm er}(A)),}\) provided the algebra A is smooth. Our construction is based on replacing vector spaces by the new symmetric monoidal category of wheelspaces. The Fock space \({\mathcal{F}(A)}\) is a commutative algebra in this category (a “commutative wheelgebra”) which is a structure closely related to the notion of wheeled PROP. Similarly, we have Lie, Poisson, etc., wheelgebras. In this language, \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))}\) becomes the universal enveloping wheelgebra of a Lie wheelgebroid of double derivations. In the second part of the paper, we show, extending a classical construction of Koszul to the noncommutative setting, that any Ricci-flat, torsion-free bimodule connection on \({\mathbb{D}{\rm er}(A)}\) gives rise to a second-order (wheeled) differential operator, a noncommutative analogue of the Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) operator, that makes \({\mathcal{F}(T_{A}(\mathbb{D}{\rm er}(A)))}\) a BV wheelgebra. In the final section, we explain how the wheeled differential operators \({\mathcal{D}(\mathcal{F}(A))}\) produce ordinary differential operators on the varieties of n-dimensional representations of A for all n ≥ 1.
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Ginzburg, V., Schedler, T. Differential operators and BV structures in noncommutative geometry. Sel. Math. New Ser. 16, 673–730 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00029-010-0029-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00029-010-0029-8