Algebras over not too little discs

Abstract

By the introduction of locally constant prefactorization algebras at a fixed scale, we show a mathematical incarnation of the fact that observables at a given scale of a topological field theory propagate to every scale over euclidean spaces. The key is that these prefactorization algebras over $\mathbb{R}^n$ are equivalent to algebras over the little $n$-disc operad. For topological field theories with defects, we get analogous results by replacing $\mathbb{R}^n$ with the spaces modelling corners $\mathbb{R}^p\times\mathbb{R}^{q}_{\geq 0}$. As a toy example in $1d$, we quantize, once more, constant Poisson structures.