Deformation theory and rational homotopy type

TL;DR

This paper explores the classification of rational homotopy types through algebraic deformation theory, linking it with moduli spaces and homotopy-theoretic structures, and extends the control framework to sh-Lie-algebras.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach connecting rational homotopy classification with algebraic deformation theory and extends the controlling algebraic structures to sh-Lie-algebras.

Findings

Classifies rational homotopy types via deformation theory.

Links moduli spaces with homotopy classification of fibrations.

Extends the control framework to sh-Lie-algebras.

Abstract

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.