Weak associativity and deformation quantization

TL;DR

This paper explores non-associative deformation quantization in string theory, focusing on alternative star products satisfying Malcev identities, with explicit examples like octonions, and discusses their properties and physical implications.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of alternative star products satisfying Malcev identities in deformation quantization, extending the framework to non-associative algebras relevant in string theory.

Findings

Constructed explicit alternative star product for octonions.

Showed the invariance of alternativity under gauge transformations.

Demonstrated the vanishing of integrated associator in the algebra.

Abstract

Non-commutativity and non-associativity are quite natural in string theory. For open strings it appear due to the presence of non-vanishing background two-form in the world volume of Dirichlet brane, while in closed string theory the flux compactifications with non-vanishing three-form also lead to non-geometric backgrounds. In this paper, working in the framework of deformation quantization, we study the violation of associativity imposing the condition that the associator of three elements should vanish whenever each two of them are equal. The corresponding star products are called alternative and satisfy an important for physical applications properties like the Moufang identities, alternative identities, Artin's theorem, etc. The condition of alternativity is invariant under the gauge transformations, just like it happens in the associative case. The price to pay is the restriction on the non-associative algebra which can be represented by the alternative star product, it should satisfy the Malcev identity. The example of nontrivial Malcev algebra is the algebra of imaginary octonions. For this case we construct an explicit expression of the non-associative and alternative star product. We also discuss the quantization of Malcev-Poisson algebras of general form, study its properties and provide the lower order expression for the alternative star product. To conclude we define the integration on the algebra of the alternative star products and show that the integrated associator vanishes.