A functorial approach to Kashiwara-Vergne

As a consequence of the proof of the Kashiwara-Vergne conjecture of Alekseev and Torossian, the authors obtained an injection $\mathrm{G}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{T}\hookrightarrow \mathrm{K}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{V}$. The group $\mathrm{G}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{T}$ can be regarded as the group of automorphisms of the operad of parenthesized chord diagrams, while $\mathrm{K}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{V}$ can be recovered from the automorphism group of the Goldman-Turaev Lie bialgebra of a thrice-punctured sphere. This suggests the existence of a natural way to derive Lie bialgebras from operads, and we verify this is the case. That is, we reproduce the Alekseev-Torossian injection by functorially constructing bracket and cobracket operations out of operad modules. This framework is enough to establish a relationship between Gonzalez’ higher genus ${\mathrm{G}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{T}}_g$ groups, and the higher genus ${\mathrm{K}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{V}}_g$ groups of Alekseev, Kawazumi, Kuno, and Naef. Our construction is informed by Massuyeau and Turaev’s work on Fox pairings and quasi-derivations.