2012/11/07 by Mike Schlessinger, Schlessinger, Mike, Jim Stasheff +1 · 4 citations
Mathematics · Medicine · #14D06 #14D20 #55P15 #55P62 #Advanced Topics in Algebra #Algebraic Topology (math.AT) #FOS: Mathematics #Homotopy and Cohomology in Algebraic Topology #Ophthalmology and Eye Disorders #Quantum Algebra (math.QA)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1211.1647
openalex publication_date 2012/11/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We regard the classification of rational homotopy types as a problem in algebraic deformation theory: any space with given cohomology is a perturbation, or deformation, of the "formal" space with that cohomology. The classifying space is then a "moduli" space --- a certain quotient of an algebraic variety of perturbations. The description we give of this moduli space links it with corresponding structures in homotopy theory, especially the classification of fibres spaces with fixed fibre F in terms of homotopy classes of maps of the base B into a classifying space constructed from the monoid of homotopy equivalences of F to itself. We adopt the philosophy, later promoted by Deligne in response to Goldman and Millson, that any problem in deformation theory is "controlled" by a differential graded Lie algebra, unique up to homology equivalence (quasi-isomorphism) of dg Lie algebras. Here we extend this philosophy further to control by sh-Lie-algebras.