These notes are intended to provide a self-contained introduction to the basic ideas of finite dimensional Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) formalism and its applications. A brief exposition of super- and graded geometries is also given. The BV-formalism is introduced through an odd Fourier transform and the algebraic aspects of integration theory are stressed. As a main application we consider the perturbation theory for certain finite dimensional integrals within BV-formalism. As an illustration we present a proof of the isomorphism between the graph complex and the Chevalley-Eilenberg complex of formal Hamiltonian vectors fields. We briefly discuss how these ideas can be extended to the infinite dimensional setting. These notes should be accessible to both physicists and mathematicians.
We explain the effective renormalization method of quantum field theory in the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism and illustrate its mathematical applications by three geometric examples: (1) Topological quantum mechanics and algebraic index, (2) Elliptic curve and higher genus mirror symmetry, (3) Calabi-Yau geometry and integrable hierarchy. This note is an expansion of author's talk at ICCM 2016.
We study an equivariant extension of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism for quantizing gauge theories. Namely, we introduce a general framework to encompass failures of the quantum master equation, and we apply it to the natural equivariant extension of AKSZ solutions of the classical master equation (CME). As examples of the construction, we recover the equivariant extension of supersymmetric Yang-Mills in 2d and of Donaldson-Witten theory.
Given a smooth family of massless free fermions parametrized by a base manifold $B$, we show that the (mathematically rigorous) Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization of the observables of this family gives rise to the determinant line bundle for the corresponding family of Dirac operators.
We apply the modern Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization techniques of Costello and Gwilliam to noncommutative field theories in the finite-dimensional case of fuzzy spaces. We further develop a generalization of this framework to theories that are equivariant under a triangular Hopf algebra symmetry, which in particular leads to quantizations of finite-dimensional analogs of the field theories proposed recently through the notion of `braided $L_\infty$-algebras'. The techniques are illustrated by computing perturbative correlation functions for scalar and Chern-Simons theories on the fuzzy $2$-sph…
This is a copy of the article published in IMRN (2007). I describe the noncommutative Batalin-Vilkovisky geometry associated naturally with arbitrary modular operad. The classical limit of this geometry is the noncommutative symplectic geometry of the corresponding tree-level cyclic operad. I show, in particular, that the algebras over the Feynman transform of a twisted modular operad P are in one-to-one correspondence with solutions to quantum master equation of Batalin-Vilkovisky geometry on the affine P-manifolds. As an application I give a construction of characteristic classes with values…
These notes give an introduction to the mathematical framework of the Batalin-Vilkovisky and Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky formalisms. Some of the presented content was given as a mini course by the first author at the 2018 QSPACE conference in Benasque.
We explicitly construct a universal A-infinity deformation of Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras, with all coefficients expressed as rational sums of multiple zeta values. If the Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra that we start with is cyclic, then so is the A-infinity deformation. Moreover, the adjoint action of the odd Poisson bracket acts by derivations of the A-infinity structure. The construction conjecturally defines a new presentation of the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra.
Into a geometric setting, we import the physical interpretation of index theorems via semi-classical analysis in topological quantum field theory. We develop a direct relationship between Fedosov's deformation quantization of a symplectic manifold X and the BV quantization of a one-dimensional sigma model with target X. This model is a quantum field theory of AKSZ type and is quantized rigorously using Costello's homotopic theory of effective renormalization. We show that Fedosov's Abelian connections on the Weyl bundle produce solutions to the effective quantum master equation. Moreover, BV i…
The goal of this article is to develop BV (Batalin-Vilkovisky) formalism in the $p$-adic Dwork theory. Based on this formalism, we explicitly construct a $p$-adic dGBV algebra (differential Gerstenhaber-Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra) for a smooth projective complete intersection variety $X$ over a finite field, whose cohomology gives the $p$-adic Dwork cohomology of $X$, and its cochain endomorphism (the $p$-adic Dwork Frobenius operator) which encodes the information of the zeta function $X$. As a consequence, we give a modern deformation theoretic interpretation of Dwork's theory of the zeta fu…
We study linear Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) quantization, which is a derived and shifted version of the Weyl quantization of symplectic vector spaces. Using a variety of homotopical machinery, we implement this construction as a symmetric monoidal functor of $\infty$-categories. We also show that this construction has a number of pleasant properties: It has a natural extension to derived algebraic geometry, it can be fed into the higher Morita category of $E_n$-algebras to produce a "higher BV quantization" functor, and when restricted to formal moduli problems, it behaves like a determinant. Alon…
We show under what conditions the complex computing general Ext-groups carries the structure of a cyclic operad such that Ext becomes a Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra. This is achieved by transferring cyclic cohomology theories for the dual of a (left) Hopf algebroid to the complex in question, which asks for the notion of contramodules introduced along with comodules by Eilenberg-Moore half a century ago. Another crucial ingredient is an explicit formula for the inverse of the Hopf-Galois map on the dual, by which we illustrate recent categorical results and answer a long-standing open question. …
In this article, we show under what additional ingredients a comp (or opposite) module over an operad with multiplication can be given the structure of a cyclic k-module and how the underlying simplicial homology gives rise to a Batalin-Vilkovisky module over the cohomology of the operad. In particular, one obtains a generalised Lie derivative and a generalised (cyclic) cap product that obey a Cartan-Rinehart homotopy formula, and hence yield the structure of a noncommutative differential calculus in the sense of Nest, Tamarkin, Tsygan, and others. Examples include the calculi known for the Ho…
In this article, we extend our preceding studies on higher algebraic structures of (co)homology theories defined by a left bialgebroid (U,A). For a braided commutative Yetter-Drinfel'd algebra N, explicit expressions for the canonical Gerstenhaber algebra structure on Ext_U(A,N) are given. Similarly, if (U,A) is a left Hopf algebroid where A is an anti Yetter-Drinfel'd module over U, it is shown that the cochain complex computing Cotor_U(A,N) defines a cyclic operad with multiplication and hence the groups Cotor_U(A,N) form a Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra. In the second part of this article, Pois…
We show that the local observables of the curved beta gamma system encode the sheaf of chiral differential operators using the machinery of the book "Factorization algebras in quantum field theory", by Kevin Costello and the second author, which combines renormalization, the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, and factorization algebras. Our approach is in the spirit of deformation quantization via Gelfand-Kazhdan formal geometry. We begin by constructing a quantization of the beta gamma system with an n-dimensional formal disk as the target. There is an obstruction to quantizing equivariantly with …
For almost any compact connected Lie group $G$ and any field $\mathbb{F}\_p$, we compute the Batalin-Vilkoviskyalgebra $H^{*+\text{dim }G}(LBG;\mathbb{F}\_p)$ on the loop cohomology of the classifying space introduced byChataur and the second author.In particular, if $p$ is odd or $p=0$, this Batalin-Vilkovisky algebra is isomorphicto the Hochschild cohomology $HH^*(H\_*(G),H\_*(G))$. Over $\mathbb{F}\_2$, such isomorphism of Batalin-Vilkovisky algebrasdoes not hold when $G=SO(3)$ or $G=G\_2$.
Using five basic principles we treat Gerstenhaber/Lie brackets, BV operators and Master equations appearing in mathematical and physical contexts in a unified way. The different contexts for this are given by the different types of (Feynman) graphs that underlie the particular situation. Two of the maxims we bring forth are (1) that extending to the non-connected graphs gives a commutative multiplication forming a part of the BV structure and (2) that there is a universal odd twist that unifies and explains seemingly ad hoc choices of signs, and is responsible for the BV operator being a diffe…
