Free Loop Space Homology of Highly Connected Manifolds

Abstract

We calculate the homology of the free loop space of (n-1)-connected closed manifolds of dimension at most 3n-2 (n > 1), with the Chas-Sullivan loop product and loop bracket. Over a field of characteristic zero, we obtain an expression for the BV-operator. We also give explicit formulas for the Betti numbers, showing they grow exponentially. Our main tool is the connection between formality, coformality and Koszul algebras that was elucidated in earlier work by the first author.