How to quantize the antibracket

Abstract

The uniqueness of (the class of) deformation of Poisson Lie algebra has long been a completely accepted folklore. Actually, it is wrong as stated, because its validity depends on the class of functions that generate Poisson Lie algebra, Po(2n): it is true for polynomials but false for Laurent polynomials. We show that unlike the Lie superalgebra Po(2n|m), its quotient modulo center, the Lie superalgebra H(2n|m) of Hamiltonian vector fields with polynomial coefficients, has exceptional extra deformations for (2n|m)=(2|2) and only for this superdimension. We relate this result to the complete description of deformations of the antibracket (also called the Schouten or Buttin bracket). The representation of the deform (the result of quantization) of the Poisson algebra in the Fock space coincides with the simplest space on which the Lie algebra of commutation relations acts. This coincidence is not necessary for Lie superalgebras