English

Strong minimal model theorem and Massey products

Algebraic Topology 2024-05-15 v2

Abstract

Kadeishvili's minimal model theorem establishes the existence of an AA_\infty-structure, unique up to isomorphism, on the cohomology of a dg associative algebra, which captures its homotopy type. In this note we prove the existence of minimal models that are unique up to isotopy, a stronger result obviously known to T. Kadeishvili and certainly to others, yet seemingly overlooked by mankind. We will explore how this stronger result can help in the study of Massey products. First, we show that the attempts to extract a local information from the ternary operation μ3\mu_3 of our minimal model leads directly to the rediscovery of the triple Massey product. The motto is: "The triple Massey product is an invariant manifestation of μ3\mu_3." We then prove that, under reasonable assumptions, the higher Massey product x1,,xn\langle x_1,\ldots,x_n\rangle equals the set of all values μn(x1,,xn)\mu_n(x_1,\ldots,x_n), where μn\mu_n runs over the nn-ary products of our minimal models. We believe that this note will help to elucidate the still somewhat enigmatic relationship between minimal models and Massey products.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.19607,
  title  = {Strong minimal model theorem and Massey products},
  author = {Martin Markl},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.19607},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Typos corrected, references added. 14 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:11:35.930Z