Virtual posets, shuffle algebras and associators

Abstract

We provide a method to construct new associators out of Drinfel'd's KZ associator. We obtain two analytic families of associators whose coefficients we can describe explicitly by a generalization of multiple zeta values. The two families contain two different paths that deform the Drinfel'd KZ associator into the trivial associator 1. We show that both paths are injective, that is, all of the associators parametrized by them are different. Our construction is based on the observation that one can recover multiple polylogarithms as generating functions of order polynomials of certain formally constructed posets.