In this paper we deduce the existence of analytic structure in a neighbourhood of a maximal ideal M in the spectrum of a commutative Banach algebra, A, from homological assumptions. We assume properties of certain of the cohomology groups H^n(A,A/M), rather than the stronger conditions on the homological dimension of the maximal ideal the first author has considered in previous papers. The conclusion is correspondingly weaker: in the previous work one deduces the existence of a Gel'fand neighbourhood with analytic structure, here we deduce only the existence of a metric neighbourhood with analytic structure. The main method is to consider products of certain co-cycles to deduce facts about the symmetric second cohomology, which is known to be related to the deformation theory of algebras.

1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 46J20, 46M20.