On BV supermanifolds and the super Atiyah class

Abstract

We study global and local geometry of forms on odd symplectic BV supermanifolds, constructed from the total space of the bundle of 1-forms on a base supermanifold. We show that globally 1-forms are an extension of vector bundles defined on the base supermanifold. In the holomorphic category, we prove that this extension is split if and only if the super Atiyah class of the base supermanifold vanishes. This is equivalent to the existence of a holomorphic superconnection: we show how this condition is related to the characteristic non-split geometry of complex supermanifolds. From a local point of view, we prove that the deformed de Rham double complex naturally arises as a de-quantization of the de Rham/Spencer double complex of the base supermanifold. Following Ševera, we show that the associated spectral sequence yields semidensities on the BV supermanifold, together with their differential in the form of a super BV Laplacian.