On Deformations of Associative Algebras

Abstract

In a classic paper, Gerstenhaber showed that first order deformations of an associative k-algebra A are controlled by the second Hochschild cohomology group of A. More generally, any n-parameter first order deformation of A gives, due to commutativity of the cup-product on Hochschild cohomology, a morphism from the graded algebra Sym(k^n) to Ext^*(A,A), the Ext-algebra in the category of A-bimodules. We prove that any extension of the n-parameter first order deformation of A to an INFINITE ORDER formal deformation provides a canonical `lift' of the graded algebra morphism above to a dg-algebra morphism from Sym(k^n) to the dg-algebra RHom(A,A), where the Symmetric algebra Sym(k^n) is viewed as a dg-algebra (generated by the vector space $\k^n$ placed in degree 2) with zero differential.