Deformations of Lie groupoids

Abstract: We study deformations of Lie groupoids by means of the cohomology which controls them. This cohomology turns out to provide an intrinsic model for the cohomology of a Lie groupoid with values in its adjoint representation. We prove several fundamental properties of the deformation cohomology including Morita invariance, a van Est theorem, and a vanishing result in the proper case. Combined with Moser's deformation arguments for groupoids, we obtain several rigidity and normal form results.