Generalizations in many directions of the contraction procedure for Lie algebras introduced by E.J.Saletan are proposed. Products of arbitrary nature, not necessarily Lie brackets, are considered on sections of finite-dimensional vector bundles. Saletan contractions of such infinite-dimensional algebras are obtained via a generalization of the Nijenhuis tensor approach. In particular, this procedure is applied to Lie algebras, Lie algebroids, and Poisson structures. There are also results on contractions of n-ary products and coproducts.
Categories: math.DG math.RA