Bialgebra actions, twists, and universal deformation formulas

We introduce a general theory of twisting algebraic structures based on actions of a bialgebra. These twists are closely related to algebraic deformations and also to the theory of quasi-triangular bialgebras. In particular, a deformation produced from a universal deformation formula (UDF) is a special case of a twist. The most familiar example of a deformation produced from a UDF is perhaps the "Moyal product" which (locally) is the canonical quantization of the algebra of functions on a symplectic manifold in the direction of the Poisson bracket. In this case, the derivations comprising the Poisson bracket mutually commute and so this quantization is essentially obtained by exponentiating this bracket. For more general Poisson manifolds, this formula is not applicable since the associated derivations may no longer commute. We provide here generalizations of the Moyal formula which (locally) give canonical quantizations of various Poisson manifolds. Specifically, whenever a certain central extension of a Heisenberg Lie group acts on a manifold, we obtain a quantization of its algebra of functions in the direction of a suitable Poisson bracket obtained from noncommuting derivations.