Gerstenhaber algebra

Murray Gerstenhaber at Oberwolfach in 2010

In mathematics and theoretical physics, a Gerstenhaber algebra (sometimes called an antibracket algebra or braid algebra) is an algebraic structure discovered by Murray Gerstenhaber (1963) that combines the structures of a supercommutative ring and a graded Lie superalgebra. It is used in the Batalin–Vilkovisky formalism. It appears also in the generalization of Hamiltonian formalism known as the De Donder–Weyl theory as the algebra of generalized Poisson brackets defined on differential forms.