Wheeled PROPs, graph complexes and the master equation

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We introduce and study wheeled PROPs, an extension of the theory of PROPs which can treat traces and, in particular, solutions to the master equations which involve divergence operators. We construct a dg free wheeled PROP whose representations are in one-to-one correspondence with formal germs of SP-manifolds, key geometric objects in the theory of Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization. We also construct minimal wheeled resolutions of classical operads Com and Ass as rather non-obvious extensions of Comᵢnfty and Assᵢnfty, involving, e.g., a mysterious mixture of associahedra with cyclohedra. Finally, we apply the above results to a computation of cohomology of a directed version of Kontsevich's complex of ribbon graphs.