The first cohomology, derivations and the reductivity of a (meromorphic open-string) vertex algebra

TL;DR

This paper establishes a cohomological criterion involving the first cohomology group for the complete reducibility of modules over a meromorphic open-string vertex algebra, linking algebraic properties to module decompositions.

Contribution

It introduces a new criterion based on first cohomology for the reducibility of modules in vertex algebra theory, extending understanding of module structure via cohomological methods.

Findings

A criterion for module reducibility using first cohomology is provided.

The paper proves that under certain conditions, the cohomology condition ensures complete reducibility.

It conjectures the converse of the main theorem, suggesting a deep link between cohomology and module structure.

Abstract

We give a criterion for the complete reducibility of modules satisfying a composability condition for a meromorphic open-string vertex algebra $V$ using the first cohomology of the algebra. For a $V$-bimodule $M$, let $\hat{H}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)$ be the first cohomology of $V$ with the coefficients in $M$. Let $\hat{Z}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)$ be the subspace of $\hat{H}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)$ canonically isomorphic to the space of derivations obtained from the zero mode of the right vertex operators of weight $1$ elements such that the difference between the skew-symmetric opposite action of the left action and the right action on these elements are Laurent polynomials in the variable. If $\hat{H}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)= \hat{Z}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)$ for every $\Z$-graded $V$-bimodule $M$, then every left $V$-module satisfying a composability condition is completely reducible. In particular, since a lower-bounded $\Z$-graded vertex algebra $V$ is a special meromorphic open-string vertex algebra and left $V$-modules are in fact what has been called generalized $V$-modules with lower-bounded weights (or lower-bounded generalized $V$-modules), this result provides a cohomological criterion for the complete reducibility of lower-bounded generalized modules for such a vertex algebra. We conjecture that the converse of the main theorem above is also true. We also prove that when a grading-restricted vertex algebra $V$ contains a subalgebra satisfying some familiar conditions, the composability condition for grading-restricted generalized $V$-modules always holds and we need $\hat{H}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)= \hat{Z}^{1}_{\infty}(V, M)$ only for every $\Z$-graded $V$-bimodule $M$ generated by a grading-restricted subspace in our complete reducibility theorem.