On deformations and contractions of Lie algebras.
In the present paper we determine for each parallelizable smooth compact manifold the second cohomology spaces of the Lie algebra of smooth vector fields on with values in the module . The case of is of particular interest since the gauge algebra of functions on with values in a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra has the universal central extension with center , generalizing affine Kac-Moody algebras. The second cohomology classifies twists of the semidirect product of with the...