Higher Arity Self-Distributive Operations in Cascades and their Cohomology

Abstract

We investigate constructions of higher arity self-distributive operations, and give relations between cohomology groups corresponding to operations of different arities. For this purpose we introduce the notion of mutually distributive $n$-ary operations generalizing those for the binary case, and define a cohomology theory labeled by these operations. A geometric interpretation in terms of framed links is described, with the scope of providing algebraic background of constructing $2$-cocycles for framed link invariants. This theory is also studied in the context of symmetric monoidal categories. Examples from Lie algebras, coalgebras and Hopf algebras are given.