Quantum torsors

Abstract

This text gives some results about quantum torsors. Our starting point is an old reformulation of torsors recalled recently by Kontsevich. We propose an unification of the definitions of torsors in algebraic geometry and in Poisson geometry. Any quantum torsor is equipped with two comodule-algebra structures over Hopf algebras and these structures commute with each other. In the finite dimensional case, these two Hopf algebras share the same finite dimension. We show that any Galois extension of a field is a torsor and that any torsor is a Hopf-Galois extension. We give also examples of non-commutative torsors without character. Torsors can be composed. This leads us to define a new group-invariant, its torsors invariant. We show how Parmentier's quantization formalism of "affine Poisson groups" is part of our theory of torsors.