A simple construction of associative deformations

Abstract

We propose a simple approach to formal deformations of associative algebras. It exploits the machinery of multiplicative coresolutions of an associative algebra A in the category of A-bimodules. Specifically, we show that certain first-order deformations of A extend to all orders and we derive explicit recurrent formulas determining this extension. In physical terms, this may be regarded as the deformation quantization of noncommutative Poisson structures on A.