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New perspectives on the BRST-algebraic structure of string theory. (English) Zbl 0780.17029

The authors give a new interpretation for the action of the symmetry charges on the BRST cohomology in terms of what they call the Gerstenhaber bracket. This interpretation gives rise to a new class of examples of what mathematicians call a Gerstenhaber algebra. Applying their theory to the \(c=1\) model, they give a precise conceptual description of the BRST-Gerstenhaber algebra of this model. They also show that their constructions generalize to any topological conformal field theory.
Reviewer: V.Abramov (Tartu)

MSC:

17B70 Graded Lie (super)algebras
81T30 String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory
81T70 Quantization in field theory; cohomological methods
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