On formal quantum group laws

Abstract

There exist natural generalizations of the concept of formal groups laws for noncommutative power series. This is a note on formal quantum group laws and quantum group law chunks. Formal quantum group laws correspond to noncommutative (topological) Hopf algebra structures on free associative power series algebras \(k\langle\! \langle x_1,\dots,x_m \rangle\! \rangle \), k a field. Some formal quantum group laws occur as completions of noncommutative Hopf algebras (quantum groups). By truncating formal power series, one gets quantum group law chunks. ¶If the characteristic of k is 0, the category of (classical) formal group laws of given dimension m is equivalent to the category of m-dimensional Lie algebras. Given a formal group law or quantum group law (chunk), the corresponding Lie structure constants are determined by the coefficients of its chunk of degree 2. Among other results, a classification of all quantum group law chunks of degree 3 is given. There are many more classes of strictly isomorphic chunks of degree 3 than in the classical case.