The purpose of this paper is to explain and to generalize, in a homotopical way, the result of Barannikov-Kontsevich and Manin which states that the underlying homology groups of some Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras carry a Frobenius manifold structure. To this extent, we first make the minimal model for the operad encoding BV-algebras explicit. Then we prove a homotopy transfer theorem for the associated notion of homotopy BV-algebra. The final result provides an extension of the action of the homology of the Deligne-Mumford-Knudsen moduli space of genus 0 curves on the homology of some BV-algebras to an action via higher homotopical operations organized by the cohomology of the open moduli space of genus zero curves. Applications in Poisson geometry and Lie algebra cohomology and to the Mirror Symmetry conjecture are given.

ABSTRACT. This is the first of two papers that introduce a deformation theoretic framework to explain and broaden a link between homotopy algebra and probability theory. In this paper, cumulants are proved to coincide with morphisms of homotopy algebras. The sequel paper outlines how the framework presented here can assist in the development of homotopy probability theory, allowing the principles of derived mathematics to participate in classical and noncommutative probability theory.

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This paper confirms the following suggestion of Kontsevich. In the appropriate derived sense, an action of the framed little disks operad and a trivialization of the circle action is the same information as an action of the Deligne-Mumford-Knudsen operad. This improves an earlier result of the author and Bruno Vallette.

We construct a space of string diagrams, which are a type of fatgraph with some additional data, and show that there are string topology operations on the chains of the free loop space of a closed Riemannian manifold which are parameterized by the chains on the space of string diagrams. These operations are shown to recover known structure on homology of the free loop space.