Operads, deformation theory and F-manifolds

It is shown that every algebra over the chain operad of the little disks operad gives naturally rise to a Hertling-Manin's F-manifold, that is a smooth manifold equipped with an integrable graded commutative associative product on the tangent sheaf. In particular, moduli spaces of extended deformations of complex/symplectic structures are shown to have a canonical structure of F-manifold. With the help of the $G_\infty$-operad a strong homotopy version of the notion of F-manifold is constructed. Among natural examples of $F_\infty$-manifolds one finds formal manifolds associated with the Hochschild cohomology of an associative algebra and with the singular cohomology of an arbitrary compact topological space.