Universal star products

Abstract

One defines the notion of universal deformation quantization: given any manifold $M$, any Poisson structure $\P$ on $M$ and any torsionfree linear connection $\nabla$ on $M$, a universal deformation quantization associates to this data a star product on $(M,\P )$ given by a series of bidifferential operators whose corresponding tensors are given by universal polynomial expressions in the Poisson tensor $\P$, the curvature tensor $R$ and their covariant iterated derivatives. Such universal deformation quantization exist. We study their unicity at order 3 in the deformation parameter, computing the appropriate universal Poisson cohomology.

To appear in Letters in Mathematical Physics