Decompositions of algebras and post-associative algebra structures

Abstract

We introduce post-associative algebra structures and study their relationship to post-Lie algebra structures, Rota–Baxter operators and decompositions of associative algebras and Lie algebras. We show several results on the existence of such structures. In particular, we prove that there exists no post-Lie algebra structure on a pair [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is a simple Lie algebra and [Formula: see text] is a reductive Lie algebra, which is not isomorphic to [Formula: see text]. We also show that there is no post-associative algebra structure on a pair [Formula: see text] arising from a Rota–Baxter operator of [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is a semisimple associative algebra and [Formula: see text] is not semisimple. The proofs use results on Rota–Baxter operators and decompositions of algebras.