1. Introduction
Derivation, also known as differential operator, plays an important role in mathematical physics, such as homotopy Lie algebras [
1], differential Galois theory [
2], control theory and gauge theories of quantumj field theory [
3]. In [
4,
5], the authors studied associative algebras with derivations from the operadic point of view. Recently, in [
6], Tang and their collaborators considered Lie algebras with derivations from the cohomological point of view. Inspired by the work of [
6], associative algebras with derivations and pre-algebras with derivations have been studied in [
7,
8], respectively.
The solution of the modified classical Yang-Baxter equation, called modified 
r-matrix, was introduced by Semenov-Tian-Shansky in [
9]. Recently, Jiang and Sheng [
10] developed the deformations of modified 
r-matrices. Inspired from [
9,
10], the  notion of modified 
-differential Lie algebras was introduced in [
11]. Subsequently, the algebraic structures with modified operators were widely studied in [
12,
13,
14,
15,
16].
However, there have been very few studies about the modified 
-differential left-symmetric algebras. Left-symmetric algebras (also called pre-Lie algebras) are nonassociative algebras, which were introduced by Cayley [
17] as a kind of rooted tree algebras and also introduced by Gerstenhaber [
18] when studying the deformation theory of rings and algebras. Left symmetric algebras have been widely used in geometry and physics, such as affine manifolds [
19], integrable systems, quantum Yang-Baxter Equations [
20,
21], Poisson brackets, operands, and complex and symplectic structures on Lie groups [
22]. See also [
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32] for more details. Thus, it is natural and necessary to study the modified 
-differential left symmetric algebras.
Motivated by the work in [
8,
11,
12,
13], our main purpose is to study the representation and cohomology of the modified 
-differential left symmetric algebras and applied them to the linear deformation, abelian extension, and skeletal modified 
-differential left symmetric 2-algebras. The paper is organized as follows. 
Section 2 introduces the representations of modified 
-differential left-symmetric algebras. In 
Section 3, we define a cohomology theory of modified 
-differential left-symmetric algebras with coefficients in a representation, and apply it to the study of linear deformation. In 
Section 4, we investigate abelian extensions of the modified 
-differential left-symmetric algebras in terms of second cohomology groups. Finally, in 
Section 5, we classify skeletal modified 
-differential left-symmetric 2-algebras by using the third cohomology group. We then prove that strict modified 
-differential left-symmetric 2-algebras are equivalent to the crossed modules of modified 
-differential left-symmetric algebras.
All tensor products, vector spaces, and (multi)linear maps are over a field  of characteristic 0.
  2. Modified -Differential Left-Symmetric Algebras and Their Representations
This section introduces the notion of a modified -differential left-symmetric algebra and gives their representations.
Now let us recall some basic concepts of left-symmetric algebras from [
18,
24].
Definition 1 ([
18])
. Left-symmetric algebra (LSA in short) is a vector space  with a bilinear product  such that for , the associator:is symmetric in , i.e., :Denote it by . Remark 1. Let  be a LSA. If we define a bilinear bracket  as:then  is a Lie algebra.  Example 1. Let  be a Lie algebra and  be a linear map satisfying the Rota–Baxter equation:then,  is a LSA, in which the LSA operation is .  Definition 2. Let  be a LSA and . If the linear map  satisfiesthen ∂ is called a modified λ-differential operator (MλD operator in short). Moreover, the triple  is called modified λ-differential left-symmetric algebra (MλDLSA in short), simply denoted by .  Remark 2. Let ∂ be an MλD operator on a LSA . If  then ∂ is a derivation on  and  is a LSA with a derivation. See [8] for LSAs with derivations.  Definition 3. The homomorphism between MλDLSAs  and  is a linear map  that satisfies  and . In addition, if Φ is bijective, it is said that Φ is isomorphic from  to .
 Example 2. Let  be a LSA. Then  is an MλDLSA, where  is an identity map.
 Example 3. Let  be an MλD Lie algebra (see [11], Definition 2.5). By Example 1, if , then  is an MλDLSA.  Example 4. Let  be a two-dimensional LSA and  be a basis, whose nonzero products are given as follows:Then the triple  is a two-dimensional MλDLSA, where , for .  Example 5. If  is an MλDLSA, and for any , then  is also an MDLSA.
 Definition 4 ([
24])
. A representation of a LSA  is a triple , where  is a vector space,  and  are two linear maps such that for all : Definition 5. Let  be a representation of a LSA . Then  is called a representation of an MλDLSA  if  is endowed with a linear map  satisfying the following equations:  For example, given an MDLSA , there is a natural adjoint representation on itself. The corresponding representation maps  and  are given by  and .
Proposition 1. The quadruple  is a representation of an MλDLSA  if and only if  is an MλDLSA with the following maps:for all  and .  Proof.  Firstly, it is easy to verify that 
 is a LSA. Furthermore, for any 
 and 
, by Equations (
2)–(6) we have:
        
        Hence, 
 is an M
DLSA.
Conversely, suppose 
 is an M
DLSA, then for any 
 and 
, we have:
        
        which implies that 
 and 
. Therefore, 
 is a representation of 
.    □
   3. Cohomology and Linear Deformations of Modified -Differential Left-Symmetric Algebras
This section defines the cohomology theory of an MDLSA with coefficients in a representation. Then the linear deformation of MDLSAs is studied by using low-order cohomology groups.
Let us first recall the cohomology theory of LSAs in [
30]. Let 
 be a LSA and 
 be a representation of it. Denote the 
cochains of 
 with coefficients in 
 by 
The coboundary map 
, for 
 and 
, as: 
      It has been proved in [
30] that 
. The cohomology group of cochain complex 
 is denoted as 
.
Let 
 be an M
DLSA and 
 be a representation of it. Inspired by [
12,
13], a linear map 
 is defined as:
Lemma 1. The map Γ defined above is a cochain map, that is, the diagram:
![Axioms 13 00380 i001]() is commutative.
is commutative. Proof.  For any 
 and 
 we have:
        
        and
        
        From Equations (
1)–(4) and expanding Equations (
9) and (
10), we can deduce that 
    □
 Definition 6. Let  be an MλDLSA and  be a representation of it. We define the cochain complex  of  with coefficients in  to the negative shift of the mapping cone of Γ
, that is, let:and the coboundary operator  is given by:for , the coboundary operator  is given by: The cohomology of , denoted by , is called the cohomology of the MλDLSA  with coefficients in . In particular, when , we just denote ,  by , , respectively, and call them the cochain complex, the cohomology of an MλDLSA , respectively.
 Corollary 1. Let  be an MλDLSA. Then, there is a short exact sequence of cochain complexes:Consequently, it induces a long exact sequence of cohomology groups:  Next, we use the established cohomology theory to characterize linear deformations of MDLSAs.
Definition 7. Let  be an MλDLSA. If for all ,  is still an MλDLSA over , where  We say that  generates a linear deformation of an MλDLSA .
 Proposition 2. If  generates a linear deformation of an MλDLSA , then  is a 2-cocycle of the MλDLSA .
 Proof.  If 
 generates a linear deformation of an M
DLSA 
, then for any 
, we have:
        
        Comparing coefficients of 
 on both sides of the above equations, we have:
        
        and
        
        Note that Equation (
11) is equivalent to 
 and that Equation (
12) is equivalent to 
 Therefore, 
, that is, 
 is a 2-cocycle.    □
 Definition 8. Let  and  be two linear deformations of MλDLSA . We call them equivalent if there exists  such that  is a homomorphism from  to , i.e., for all , the following equations hold:  Proposition 3. If two linear deformations  and  are equivalent, then  and  are in the same cohomology class of .
 Proof.  Let 
 be an isomorphism. Expanding the equations and collecting coefficients of 
t, we get from Equations (
13) and (14):
        
        that is, 
 So, 
 and 
 are in the same cohomology class of 
.    □
 Remark 3. If  is equivalent to the undeformed deformation , we call the linear deformation  of an MλDLSA  trivial.
   4. Abelian Extensions of Modified -Differential Left-Symmetric Algebras
This section mainly studies the abelian extensions of an MDLSA.
Definition 9. Let  be an MλDLSA and  an abelian MλDLSA with the trivial product . An abelian extension  of  by  is a short exact sequence of morphisms of MλDLSAs:that is, there exists a commutative diagram:such that  and , for  i.e.,  is an abelian ideal of   A section of an abelian extension  of  by  is a linear map  such that .
Definition 10. Let  and  be two abelian extensions of  by . They are said to be isomorphic if there exists an MλDLSA isomorphism , such that the following diagram is commutative:  Let 
 be an abelian extension of an M
DLSA 
 by 
 and 
 be a section of it. For any 
, define 
 and 
, respectively, by:
We further define linear maps 
 and 
, respectively, by:
Obviously, 
 is isomorphic to 
 as vector spaces. Transfer the M
DLSA structure on 
 to that on 
, we obtain an M
DLSA 
, where 
 and 
 are given by:
In addition, we have an abelian extension
      
      which is isomorphic to the original abelian extension (
15).
Proposition 4. With the above notations,  is a representation of the MλDLSA .
 Proof.  For any 
 and 
, 
 is an abelian ideal of 
 and 
, and we have:
        
        It is similar to see 
 Hence, this shows that 
 is a representation of the LSA 
.
Moreover, by  
 we have:
        
       By the same token, 
. Hence, we deduce that 
 is a representation of 
.    □
 Proposition 5. With the above notation, the pair  is a 2-cocycle of the MλDLSA  with coefficients in .
 Proof.  By 
 is an M
DLSA, for any 
 and 
, we have:
        
        Furthermore, the above two equations are equivalent to the following equations:
        
        Using Equations (18) and (19), we have 
 and 
, respectively. Therefore, 
 that is, 
 is a 2-cocycle.    □
 Let us now study the influence of different choices of sections.
Proposition 6. Let  be an abelian extension of an MλDLSA  by  and  be a section of it.
(i) Different choices of the section  give the same representation on . Moreover, isomorphic abelian extensions give rise to the same representation of .
(ii) The cohomology class  of does not depend on the choice of .
 Proof.  (i) Let 
 be another section of 
 and 
 be another representation of 
 constructed using the section 
. By 
 for 
, then we have:
        
        which implies that 
. Similarly, there is also 
. Thus, different choices of the section 
 give the same representation on 
.
Moreover, let 
 and 
 be two isomorphic abelian extensions of 
 by 
 with the associated isomorphism 
 such that the diagram in (
16) is commutative. Let 
 and 
 be two sections of 
 and 
, respectively. By Proposition 4, we have 
 and 
, which are their representations, respectively. Define 
 by 
. As 
, we have:
        
        Thus, we obtain that 
 is a section of 
. By 
 is an isomorphism of M
DLSAs such that 
, for any 
 and 
, we have:
        
        which implies that 
. Similarly, there is also 
. Thus, isomorphic abelian extensions give rise to the same representation of 
.
(ii) Let 
 be another section of 
, by Proposition 5, we get another corresponding 2-cocycle 
. Define 
 by 
, for any 
, we have:
        
        Hence, 
, that is 
 and 
 are in the same cohomological class in 
.    □
 Next, we are ready to classify abelian extensions of an MDLSA.
Theorem 1. Abelian extensions of an MλDLSA  by  are classified by the second cohomology group .
 Proof.  Assume that 
 and 
 are two isomorphic abelian extensions of 
 by 
 with the associated isomorphism 
 such that the diagram in (
16) is commutative. Let 
 be a section of 
. As 
, we have:
        
        Thus, we obtain that 
 is a section of 
. Denote 
. Since 
 is an isomorphism of M
DLSAs such that 
, we have:
        
        and
        
        Thus, isomorphic abelian extensions gives rise to the same element in 
.
Conversely, given two 2-cocycles 
 and 
, we can construct two abelian extensions 
 and 
 via (
17). If they represent the same cohomology class in 
, then there exists 
 such that:
        
        We define 
 by 
 for all 
 Then, it is easy to verify that 
 is an isomorphism of these two abelian extensions 
 and 
 such that the diagram in (
16) is commutative.    □
   5. Skeletal Modified -Differential Left-Symmetric Algebras and Crossed Modules
In this section, first we classify skeletal MD left-symmetric 2-algebras via the third cohomology group. Then, we introduce the notion of a crossed module of MDLSAs, and show that they are equivalent to strict MD left-symmetric 2-algebras.
We first recall the definition of left-symmetric 2-algebras from [
31], which is the categorization of a LSA.
A left-symmetric 2-algebra is a quintuple 
, where 
 is a linear map, 
 are bilinear maps, and 
 is a trilinear map, such that for any 
 and 
, the following equations are satisfied: 
      
        
      
      
      
      
     Motivated by [
31,
32], we propose the concept of an M
D left-symmetric 2-algebra.
Definition 11. An MλD left-symmetric 2-algebra consists of a left-symmetric 2-algebra  and an MλD 2-operator  on , where ,  and , for any , satisfying the following equations:
      
        
      
      
      
      
      We denote an MλD left-symmetric 2-algebra by .
 An MD left-symmetric 2-algebra is said to be skeletal (resp. strict) if  (resp. ).
Example 6. For any MλDLSA ,  is a strict MλD left-symmetric 2-algebra.
 Proposition 7. Let  be an MλD left-symmetric 2-algebra.
(i) If  is skeletal or strict, then  is an MλDLSA, where  for .
(ii) If  is strict, then  is an MλDLSA, where  for .
(iii) If  is skeletal or strict, then  is a representation of , where  and  for .
 Proof.  From Equations (20)–(25) and (27)–(30), (i), (ii), and (iii) can be obtained by direct verification.    □
 Theorem 2. There is a one-to-one correspondence between skeletal MλD left-symmetric 2-algebras and 3-cocycles of MλDLSAs.
 Proof.  Let 
 be an M
D left-symmetric 2-algebra. By Proposition 7, we can consider the cohomology of M
DLSA 
 with coefficients in the representation 
. For any 
, by Equation (26), we have:
        
      
        
      
      
      
      
     
       By Equations (
8) and (31), it holds that
        
      
        
      
      
      
      
     
        Thus, 
 which implies that 
 is a 3-cocycle of M
DLSA 
 with coefficients in the representation 
.
Conversely, assume that  is a 3-cocycle of MDLSA  with coefficients in the representation . Then,  is a skeletal MD left-symmetric 2-algebra, where  and  with  for any .    □
 Next we introduce the concept of crossed modules of MDLSAs, which are equivalent to strict MD left-symmetric 2-algebras.
Definition 12. A crossed module of MλDLSAs is a quadruple , where  and  are MλDLSAs,  is a homomorphism of MλDLSAs and  is a representation of , for any , satisfying the following equations:  Theorem 3. There is a one-to-one correspondence between strict MλD left-symmetric 2-algebras and crossed modules of MλDLSAs.
 Proof.  Let 
 be a strict M
D left-symmetric 2-algebra. By Proposition 7, we may construct a crossed module of M
DLSA 
, where, 
  and 
, for 
. Based on Proposition 7, we only need to check that Equations (32) and (33) hold and 
d is a homomorphism of M
DLSAs. In fact, by Equation (20), we have:
        
        combining with Equation (27), which implies that 
d is a homomorphism of M
DLSAs. Furthermore, we have:
        
        Thus, we obtain a crossed module of M
DLSAs.
Conversely, a crossed module of M
DLSA 
 gives rise to a strict M
D left-symmetric 2-algebra 
 = 
, where 
 are given by:
        
        for all 
. Direct verification shows that 
 is a strict M
D left-symmetric 2-algebra.    □