The chiral WZNW phase space as a quasi-Poisson space

Abstract

It is explained that the chiral WZNW phase space is a quasi-Poisson space with respect to the `canonical' Lie quasi-bialgebra which is the classical limit of Drinfeld's quasi-Hopf deformation of the universal enveloping algebra. This exemplifies the notion of quasi-Poisson-Lie symmetry introduced recently by Alekseev and Kosmann-Schwarzbach, and also permits us to generalize certain dynamical twists considered previously in this example.