Notes on the associator

by Markus Rost (Notes, April 2024/April 2025, 30 pages)

April 2024: We discuss the 5-term relation for associators, its relation with the associahedron and ask questions.

(x,y,z)t + (x,yz,t) + x(y,z,t) = (x,y,zt) + (xy,z,t)

May 2024: Added references to alternative algebras.

December 2024: Section 6 has an essentially complete discussion of the associahedral chain complex and its acyclicity. Section 7 has beautiful diagrams!

February 2025: I realized that the cubical presentation of the associahedron is known as "Tamari polytope". See the updated preface.

March 2025: Section 8 has a TeX version of the original Tamari diagram. A variant (April 2025) shows the homotopy.

Full text (April 19, 2025): [pdf]

Associahedron drawings

Cubical associahedron drawings

The 2-dimensional associahedron (the pentagon as rectangle with an edge subdivided):

The pentagon and its contraction

The 3-dimensional associahedron (as cuboid with two faces subdivided): [main page: The 3-dimensional associahedron unfolded]

A 3-dimensional associahedron

Partial image of the 4-dimensional cubical associahedron: [variant with all 42 points]

A 4-dimensional associahedron

[higher resolution image]

Notes on associator identities

by Markus Rost (Notes, May 2024, 10 pages)

The text contains notes on some (well-known) identities in non-associative algebras.

Among other things, we establish the 5-term relation for associators and this identity in alternative algebras:

(x,yz,t) - (x,z,t) y - z (x,y,t) = (x,z,[y,t]) + ([x,z],y,t)

Full text (June 18, 2024): [pdf]

Notes on free alternative algebras

by Markus Rost (Notes, June 2024, 12 pages)

We compute the free alternative algebra up to degree 4.

(**)** (***)* *(**)* *(***) **(**)

Full text (June 22, 2024): [pdf]


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