Topological Frobenius algebras

Abstract

We define the notions of unital/counital/biunital infinitesimal anti-symmetric bialgebras and coFrobenius bialgebras and discuss their algebraic properties. We also define the notion of a graded 2D open-closed TQFT. These structures arise in Rabinowitz Floer homology, loop space homology, quantum homology, and the homology of finite dimensional manifolds. The underlying vector spaces, which are typically infinite dimensional, belong to a class of topological vector spaces known as Tate vector spaces.

64 pages, 9 figures. v2: major revision, in which we use in a systematic way the formalism of Tate vector spaces. Title changed