Using crossed homomorphisms, we show that the category of weak representations (respectively admissible representations) of Lie–Rinehart algebras (respectively Leibniz pairs) is a left module category over the monoidal category of representations of Lie algebras. In particular, the corresponding bifunctor of monoidal categories is established to give new weak representations (respectively admissible representations) of Lie–Rinehart algebras (respectively Leibniz pairs). This generalises and unifies various existing constructions of representations of many Lie algebras by using this new bifunctor. We construct some crossed homomorphisms in different situations and use our actions of monoidal categories to recover some known constructions of representations of various Lie algebras and to obtain new representations for generalised Witt algebras and their Lie subalgebras. The cohomology theory of crossed homomorphisms between Lie algebras is introduced and used to study linear deformations of crossed homomorphisms.

Let X be a finite connected poset and K a field. We study the question, when all Lie automorphisms of the incidence algebra I(X, K) are proper. Without any restriction on the length of X, we find only a sufficient condition involving certain equivalence relation on the set of maximal chains of X. For some classes of posets of length one, such as finite connected crownless posets (i.e., without weak crown subposets), crowns, and ordinal sums of two anti-chains, we give a complete answer.

Let $\mathcal {X}$ be a Banach space over the complex field $\mathbb {C}$ and $\mathcal {B(X)}$ be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on $\mathcal {X}$ . Let $\mathcal {N}$ be a nontrivial nest on $\mathcal {X}$ , $\text {Alg}\mathcal {N}$ be the nest algebra associated with $\mathcal {N}$ , and $L\colon \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}\longrightarrow \mathcal {B(X)}$ be a linear mapping. Suppose that $p_n(x_1,x_2,\ldots ,x_n)$ is an $(n-1)\,$ th commutator defined by n indeterminates $x_1, x_2, \ldots , x_n$ . It is shown that L satisfies the rule

$$ \begin{align*}L(p_n(A_1, A_2, \ldots, A_n))=\sum_{k=1}^{n}p_n(A_1, \ldots, A_{k-1}, L(A_k), A_{k+1}, \ldots, A_n) \end{align*} $$

for all $A_1, A_2, \ldots , A_n\in \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}$ if and only if there exist a linear derivation $D\colon \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}\longrightarrow \mathcal {B(X)}$ and a linear mapping $H\colon \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}\longrightarrow \mathbb {C}I$ vanishing on each $(n-1)\,$ th commutator $p_n(A_1,A_2,\ldots , A_n)$ for all $A_1, A_2, \ldots , A_n\in \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}$ such that $L(A)=D(A)+H(A)$ for all $A\in \text {Alg}\mathcal {N}$ . We also propose some related topics for future research.

We prove that the group of automorphisms of the Lie algebra DerK(Qn) of derivations of the field of rational functions Qn = K(x1, . . ., xn) over a field of characteristic zero is canonically isomorphic to the group of automorphisms of the K-algebra Qn.

We study the automorphism group of the algebra $\co_q(M_n)$ of n × n generic quantum matrices. We provide evidence for our conjecture that this group is generated by the transposition and the subgroup of those automorphisms acting on the canonical generators of $\co_q(M_n)$ by multiplication by scalars. Moreover, we prove this conjecture in the case when n = 3.

We investigate a class of Lie algebras which we call generalized reductive Lie algebras. These are generalizations of semi-simple, reductive, and affine Kac–Moody Lie algebras. A generalized reductive Lie algebra which has an irreducible root system is said to be irreducible and we note that this class of algebras has been under intensive investigation in recent years. They have also been called extended affine Lie algebras. The larger class of generalized reductive Lie algebras has not been so intensively investigated. We study them in this paper and note that one way they arise is as fixed point subalgebras of finite order automorphisms. We show that the core modulo the center of a generalized reductive Lie algebra is a direct sum of centerless Lie tori. Therefore one can use the results known about the classification of centerless Lie tori to classify the cores modulo centers of generalized reductive Lie algebras.

Non-abelian homology of Lie algebras with coefficients in Lie algebras is constructed and studied, generalising the classical Chevalley-Eilenberg homology of Lie algebras. The relationship between cyclic homology and Milnor cyclic homology of non-commutative associative algebras is established in terms of the long exact non-abelian homology sequence of Lie algebras. Some explicit formulae for the second and the third non-abelian homology of Lie algebras are obtained.

We prove Pursell–Shanks type results for the Lie algebra $\mathcal{D}(M)$ of all linear differential operators of a smooth manifold M, for its Lie subalgebra $\mathcal{D}^1(M)$ of all linear first-order differential operators of M and for the Poisson algebra S(M) = Pol(T*M) of all polynomial functions on T*M, the symbols of the operators in $\mathcal{D}(M)$. Chiefly, however, we provide explicit formulas completely describing the automorphisms of the Lie algebras $\mathcal{D}^1(M)$, S(M) and $\mathcal{D}(M)$.

Xu introduced a class of nongraded Hamiltonian Lie algebras. These Lie algebras have a Poisson bracket structure. In this paper, the isomorphism classes of these Lie algebras are determined by employing a “sandwich” method and by studying some features of these Lie algebras. It is obtained that two Hamiltonian Lie algebras are isomorphic if and only if their corresponding Poisson algebras are isomorphic. Furthermore, the derivation algebras and the second cohomology groups are determined.

In this paper, we determine when two simple generalized Cartan type $W$ Lie algebras ${{W}_{d}}(A,\,T,\,\varphi )$ are isomorphic, and discuss the relationship between the Jacobian conjecture and the generalized Cartan type $W$ Lie algebras.

In a recent paper [2] we defined four classes of infinite dimensional simple Lie algebras over a field of characteristic 0 which we called W*, S*, H*, and K*. As the names suggest, these classes generalize the Lie algebras of Cartan type. A second paper [3] investigates the derivations of the algebras W* and S*, and the possible isomorphisms between these algebras and the algebras defined by Block [1]. In the present paper we investigate the automorphisms of the algebras of type W*.

Let F be the free metabelian Lie algebra of finite rank m over a field K of characteristic 0. The automorphism group Aut F is considered with respect to a topology called the formal power series topology and it is shown that the group of tame automorphisms (automorphisms induced from the free Lie algebra of rank m) is dense in Aut F for m ≥ 4 but not dense for m = 2 and m = 3. At a more general level, we study the formal power series topology on the semigroup of all endomorphisms of an arbitrary (associative or non-associative) relatively free algebra of finite rank m and investigate certain associated modules of the general linear group GLm(AT).