We introduce the notion of a semi-Riemannian spectral triple which generalizes the notion of spectral triple and allows for a treatment of semi-Riemannian manifolds within a noncommutative setting. It turns out that the relevant spaces in noncommutative semi-Riemannian geometry are not Hilbert spaces any more but Krein spaces, and Dirac operators are Krein-selfadjoint. We show that the noncommutative tori can be endowed with a semi-Riemannian structure in this way. For the noncommutative tori as well as for semi-Riemannian spin manifolds the dimension, the signature of the metric, and the integral of a function can be recovered from the spectral data.
In order to investigate to what extent the calculus of classical (pseudo-)Riemannian manifolds can be extended to a noncommutative setting, we introduce pseudo-Riemannian calculi of modules over noncommutative algebras. In this framework, it is possible to prove an analogue of Levi-Civita's theorem, stating that there exists at most one torsion-free and metric connection for a given (metric) module, satisfying the requirements of a real metric calculus. Furthermore, the corresponding curvature operator has the same symmetry properties as the classical Riemannian curvature. As our main motivati…
In analogy with classical submanifold theory, we introduce morphisms of real metric calculi together with noncommutative embeddings. We show that basic concepts, such as the second fundamental form and the Weingarten map, translate into the noncommutative setting and, in particular, we prove a noncommutative analogue of Gauss equations for the curvature of a submanifold. Moreover, the mean curvature of an embedding is readily introduced, giving a natural definition of a noncommutative minimal embedding, and we illustrate the novel concepts by considering the noncommutative torus as a minimal s…
This paper studies geometric structures on noncommutative hypersurfaces within a module-theoretic approach to noncommutative Riemannian (spin) geometry. A construction to induce differential, Riemannian and spinorial structures from a noncommutative embedding space to a noncommutative hypersurface is developed and applied to obtain noncommutative hypersurface Dirac operators. The general construction is illustrated by studying the sequence $\mathbb{T}^{2}_θ \hookrightarrow \mathbb{S}^{3}_θ \hookrightarrow \mathbb{R}^{4}_θ$ of noncommutative hypersurface embeddings.
The subject of this PhD thesis is noncommutative geometry - more specifically spectral triples - and how it can be generalized to semi-Riemannian manifolds generally, and Lorentzian manifolds in particular. The first half of this thesis will thus be dedicated to the transition from Riemannian to semi-Riemannian manifolds. This entails a study of Clifford algebras for indefinite vector spaces and Spin structures on semi-Riemannian manifolds. An important consequence of this is the introduction of Krein spaces, which will enable us to generalize spectral triples to indefinite spectral triples. I…
Anderson's nonstandard construction of brownian motion as an infinitesimal random walk on the euclidean line is generalized to an Hausdorff riemannian manifold. A nonstandard Feynman-Kac formula holding on such an Hausdorff riemannian manifold is derived. Indications are given on how these (radically elementary) results could allow to formulate a nonstandard version of Stochastic Mechanics (avoiding both the explicitly discussed bugs of Internal Set Theory as well as the controversial renormalization of the stochastic action). It is anyway remarked how this would contribute to hide the basic f…
Several examples and models based on noncommutative differential calculi on commutative algebras indicate that a metric should be regarded as an element of the left-linear tensor product of the space of 1-forms with itself. We show how the metric compatibility condition with a linear connection generalizes to this framework.
A Riemannian geometry of noncommutative n-dimensional surfaces is developed as a first step towards the construction of a consistent noncommutative gravitational theory. Historically, as well, Riemannian geometry was recognized to be the underlying structure of Einstein's theory of general relativity and led to further developments of the latter. The notions of metric and connections on such noncommutative surfaces are introduced and it is shown that the connections are metric-compatible, giving rise to the corresponding Riemann curvature. The latter also satisfies the noncommutative analogue …
We consider noncommutative geometries obtained from a triangular Drinfeld twist and review the formulation of noncommutative gravity. A detailed study of the abelian twist geometry is presented, including the fundamental theorem of noncommutative Riemannian geometry. Inspired by [1, 2], we obtain solutions of noncommutative Einstein equations by considering twists that are compatible with the curved spacetime metric.
This thesis concerns the research on a Lorentzian generalization of Alain Connes' noncommutative geometry. In the first chapter, we present an introduction to noncommutative geometry within the context of unification theories. The second chapter is dedicated to the basic elements of noncommutative geometry as the noncommutative integral, the Riemannian distance function and spectral triples. In the last chapter, we investigate the problem of the generalization to Lorentzian manifolds. We present a first step of generalization of the distance function with the use of a global timelike eikonal c…
We develop the formalism for noncommutative differential geometry and Riemmannian geometry to take full account of the *-algebra structure on the (possibly noncommutative) coordinate ring and the bimodule structure on the differential forms. We show that *-compatible bimodule connections lead to braid operators $σ$ in some generality (going beyond the quantum group case) and we develop their role in the exterior algebra. We study metrics in the form of Hermitian structures on Hilbert *-modules and metric compatibility in both the usual and a cotorsion form. We show that the theory works well f…
We present a new, general approach to gauge theory on principal $G$-spectral triples, where $G$ is a compact connected Lie group. We introduce a notion of vertical Riemannian geometry for $G$-$C^\ast$-algebras and prove that the resulting noncommutative orbitwise family of Kostant's cubic Dirac operators defines a natural unbounded $KK^G$-cycle in the case of a principal $G$-action. Then, we introduce a notion of principal $G$-spectral triple and prove, in particular, that any such spectral triple admits a canonical factorisation in unbounded $KK^G$-theory with respect to such a cycle: up to a…
When considered as submanifolds of Euclidean space, the Riemannian geometry of the round sphere and the Clifford torus may be formulated in terms of Poisson algebraic expressions involving the embedding coordinates, and a central object is the projection operator, projecting tangent vectors in the ambient space onto the tangent space of the submanifold. In this note, we point out that there exist noncommutative analogues of these projection operators, which implies a very natural definition of noncommutative tangent spaces as particular projective modules. These modules carry an induced connec…
We formulate a quantum generalization of the notion of the group of Riemannian isometries for a compact Riemannian manifold, by introducing a natural notion of smooth and isometric action by a compact quantum group on a classical or noncommutative manifold described by spectral triples, and then proving the existence of a universal object (called the quantum isometry group) in the category of compact quantum groups acting smoothly and isometrically on a given (possibly noncommutative) manifold satisfying certain regularity assumptions. In fact, we identify the quantum isometry group with the u…
We survey the geometry of Lagrange and Finsler spaces and discuss the issues related to the definition of curvature of nonholonomic manifolds enabled with nonlinear connection structure. It is proved that any commutative Riemannian geometry (in general, any Riemann--Cartan space) defined by a generic off--diagonal metric structure (with an additional affine connection possessing nontrivial torsion) is equivalent to a generalized Lagrange, or Finsler, geometry modeled on nonholonomic manifolds. This results in the problem of constructing noncommutative geometries with local anisotropy, in parti…
We prove a Koszul formula for the Levi-Civita connection for any pseudo-Riemannian bilinear metric on a class of centered bimodule of noncommutative one-forms. As an application to the Koszul formula, we show that our Levi-Civita connection is a bimodule connection. We construct a spectral triple on a fuzzy sphere and compute the scalar curvature for the Levi-Civita connection associated to a canonical metric.
The spectral distance for noncommutative Moyal planes is considered in the framework of a non compact spectral triple recently proposed as a possible noncommutative analog of non compact Riemannian spin manifold. An explicit formula for the distance between any two elements of a particular class of pure states can be determined. The corresponding result is discussed. The existence of some pure states at infinite distance signals that the topology of the spectral distance on the space of states is not the weak * topology. The case of the noncommutative torus is also considered and a formula for…
Following the general principles of noncommutative geometry, it is possible to define a metric on the space of pure states of the noncommutative algebra generated by the coordinates. This metric generalizes the usual Riemannian one. We investigate some general properties of this metric in the finite commutative case which corresponds to a metric on a finite set, and also give some examples of computations in both commutative and noncommutative cases.
A generalization of the notion of a (pseudo-) Riemannian space is proposed in a framework of noncommutative geometry. In particular, there are parametrized families of generalized Riemannian spaces which are deformations of classical geometries. We also introduce harmonic maps on generalized Riemannian spaces into Hopf algebras and make contact with integrable models in two dimensions.
We extend the results of Riemannian geometry over finite groups and provide a full classification of all linear connections for the minimal noncommutative differential calculus over a finite cyclic group. We solve the torsion-free and metric compatibility condition in general and show that there are several classes of solutions, out of which only special ones are compatible with a metric that gives a Hilbert $C^\ast$-module structure on the space of the one-forms. We compute curvature and scalar curvature for these metrics and find their continuous limits.
We deal with two dynamical systems associated with a Riemannian manifold with boundary. The first one is a system governed by the scalar wave equation, the second is governed by the Maxwell equations. Both of the systems are controlled from the boundary. The inverse problem is to recover the manifold via the relevant measurements at the boundary (inverse data). We show that the inverse data determine a C*-algebras, whose (topologized) spectra are identical to the manifold. By this, to recover the manifold is to determine a proper algebra from the inverse data, find its spectrum, and provide th…
Gauge fields have a natural metric interpretation in terms of horizontal distance. The latest, also called Carnot-Caratheodory or subriemannian distance, is by definition the length of the shortest horizontal path between points, that is to say the shortest path whose tangent vector is everywhere horizontal with respect to the gauge connection. In noncommutative geometry all the metric information is encoded within the Dirac operator D. In the classical case, i.e. commutative, Connes's distance formula allows to extract from D the geodesic distance on a riemannian spin manifold. In the case of…
This is a review of explicit computations of Connes distance in noncommutative geometry, covering finite dimensional spectral triples, almost-commutative geometries, and spectral triples on the algebra of compact operators. Several applications to physics are covered, like the metric interpretation of the Higgs field, and the comparison of Connes distance with the minimal length that emerges in various models of quantum spacetime. Links with other areas of mathematics are studied, in particular the horizontal distance in sub-Riemannian geometry. The interpretation of Connes distance as a nonco…
We formulate a noncommutative generalization of the Ricci flow theory in the framework of spectral action approach to noncommutative geometry. Grisha Perelman's functionals are generated as commutative versions of certain spectral functionals defined by nonholonomic Dirac operators and corresponding spectral triples. We derive the formulas for spectral averaged energy and entropy functionals and state the conditions when such values describe (non)holonomic Riemannian configurations.
Connes' noncommutative Riemannian distance formula is constructed in two steps, the first one being the construction of a path-independent geometrical functional using a global constraint on continuous functions. This paper generalizes this first step to Lorentzian geometry. We show that, in a globally hyperbolic spacetime, a single global timelike eikonal condition is sufficient to construct a path-independent Lorentzian distance function.
Endomorphisms algebras can replace the concept of principal fiber bundle. Gauge theories are reformulated within this algebraic framework and further generalized to unify ordinary connections and Higgs fields. A 'noncommutative Maxwell' model is built starting from non trivial fiber bundles thus requiring the development of the notion of Riemannian structure. The tools involved in the study of associative algebras are presented and an algebraic method to characterize the usual Chern-Weil morphism is proposed. Then, current results on symmetric fiber bundles are generalized to noncommutative co…
Many quantum groups and quantum spaces of interest can be obtained by cochain (but not cocycle) twist from their corresponding classical object. This failure of the cocycle condition implies a hidden nonassociativity in the noncommutative geometry already known to be visible at the level of differential forms. We extend the cochain twist framework to connections and Riemannian structures and provide examples including twist of the $S^7$ coordinate algebra to a nonassociative hyperbolic geometry in the same category as that of the octonions.
With the bare essentials of noncommutative geometry (defined by a spectral triple), we first describe how it naturally gives rise to gauge theories. Then, we quickly review the notion of twisting (in particular, minimally) noncommutative geometries and how it induces a Wick rotation, that is, a transition of the metric signature from euclidean to Lorentzian. We focus on comparatively more tractable examples of spectral triples; such as the ones corresponding to a closed Riemannian spin manifold, $U(1)$ gauge theory, and electrodynamics. By minimally twisting these examples and computing their …
When dealing with the classical limit of two quantum mechanical oscillators on a noncommutative configuration space, the limits corresponding to the removal of configuration-space noncommutativity and position-momentum noncommutativity do not commute. We address this behaviour from the point of view of the phase-space localisation properties of the Wigner functions of coherent states under the two limits.
Within the framework of Connes' noncommutative geometry, the notion of an almost commutative manifold can be used to describe field theories on compact Riemannian spin manifolds. The most notable example is the derivation of the Standard Model of high energy physics from a suitably chosen almost commutative manifold. In contrast to such a non-abelian gauge theory, it has long been thought impossible to describe an abelian gauge theory within this framework. The purpose of this paper is to improve on this point. We provide a simple example of a commutative spectral triple based on the two-point…
Our understanding of the notion of curvature in a noncommutative setting has progressed substantially in the past ten years. This new episode in noncommutative geometry started when a Gauss-Bonnet theorem was proved by Connes and Tretkoff for a curved noncommutative two torus. Ideas from spectral geometry and heat kernel asymptotic expansions suggest a general way of defining local curvature invariants for noncommutative Riemannian type spaces where the metric structure is encoded by a Dirac type operator. To carry explicit computations however one needs quite intriguing new ideas. We give an …
We study a noncommutative analogue of a spacetime foliated by spacelike hypersurfaces, in both Riemannian and Lorentzian signatures. First, in the classical commutative case, we show that the canonical Dirac operator on the total spacetime can be reconstructed from the family of Dirac operators on the hypersurfaces. Second, in the noncommutative case, the same construction continues to make sense for an abstract family of spectral triples. In the case of Riemannian signature, we prove that the construction yields in fact a spectral triple, which we call a product spectral triple. In the case o…
In this thesis, we studied certain mathematical issues related to the computation of the Chamseddine--Connes spectral action on some fundamental noncommutative spectral triples, such as the noncommutative torus and the quantum 3-sphere SUq(2). We showed in particular that a Diophantine condition on the deformation matrix of the torus is crucial to obtain the spectral action with real structure. We also studied the question of existence of tadpoles (linear terms in the gauge potential of the fluctuation of the metric in the spectral action) for commutative Riemannian geometries, and the constru…
It is well known that for a given Poisson structure one has infinitely many star products related through the Kontsevich gauge transformations. These gauge transformations have an infinite functional dimension (i.e., correspond to an infinite number of degrees of freedom per point of the base manifold). We show that on a symplectic manifold this freedom may be almost completely eliminated if one extends the star product to all tensor fields in a covariant way and impose some natural conditions on the tensor algebra. The remaining ambiguity either correspond to constant renormalizations to the …
We prove a Tauberian theorem for singular values of noncommuting operators which allows us to prove exact asymptotic formulas in noncommutative geometry at a high degree of generality. We explain how, via the Birman--Schwinger principle, these asymptotics imply that a semiclassical Weyl law holds for many interesting noncommutative examples. In Connes' notation for quantized calculus, we prove that for a wide class of $p$-summable spectral triples $(\mathcal{A},H,D)$ and self-adjoint $V \in \mathcal{A}$, there holds \[\lim_{h\downarrow 0} h^p\mathrm{Tr}(χ_{(-\infty,0)}(h^2D^2+V)) = \int V_-^{\…
We define pseudo-Riemannian spectral triples, an analytic context broad enough to encompass a spectral description of a wide class of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, as well as their noncommutative generalisations. Our main theorem shows that to each pseudo-Riemannian spectral triple we can associate a genuine spectral triple, and so a K-homology class. With some additional assumptions we can then apply the local index theorem. We give a range of examples and some applications. The example of the harmonic oscillator in particular shows that our main theorem applies to much more than just classica…
Motivated by the local formulae for asymptotic expansion of heat kernels in spectral geometry, we propose a definition of Ricci curvature in noncommutative settings. The Ricci operator of an oriented closed Riemannian manifold can be realized as a spectral functional, namely the functional defined by the zeta function of the full Laplacian of the de Rham complex, localized by smooth endomorphisms of the cotangent bundle and their trace. We use this formulation to introduce the Ricci functional in a noncommutative setting and in particular for curved noncommutative tori. This Ricci functional u…
We give examples illustrating the fact that the different space/time splittings of the tangent bundle of a semi-Riemannian spin manifold give rise to non-equivalent norms on the space of compactly supported sections of the spinor bundle, and as a result, to different completions. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for two space/time splittings to define equivalent norms in terms of a generalized Doppler shift between maximal negative definite subspaces. We explore some consequences for the Noncommutative Geometry program.
We recall the emergence of a generalized gauge theory from a noncommutative Riemannian spin manifold, viz. a real spectral triple $(A,H,D;J)$. This includes a gauge group determined by the unitaries in the $*$-algebra $A$ and gauge fields arising from a so-called perturbation semigroup which is associated to $A$. Our main new result is the interpretation of this generalized gauge theory in terms of an upper semi-continuous $C^*$-bundle on a (Hausdorff) base space $X$. The gauge group acts by vertical automorphisms on this $C^*$-bundle and can (under some mild conditions) be identified with the…
We study quantum Dirichlet forms and the associated symmetric quantum Markov semigroups on noncommutative $L^2$ spaces. It is known from the work of Cipriani and Sauvageot that these semigroups induce a first order differential calculus, and we use this differential calculus to define a noncommutative transport metric on the set of density matrices. This construction generalizes both the $L^2$-Wasserstein distance on a large class of metric spaces as well as the discrete transport distance introduced by Maas, Mielke, and Chow-Huang-Li-Zhou. Assuming a Bakry-Émery-type gradient estimate, we sho…
In 1992, Agache and Chaple introduced the concept of a semi-symmetric non-metric connection([1]). The semi-symmetric non-metric connection does not satisfy the Schur`s theorem. The purpose of the present paper is to study some properties of a new semi-symmetric non-metric connection satisfying the Schur`s theorem in a Riemannian manifold. And we considered necessary and sufficient condition that a Riemannian manifold with a semi-symmetric non-metric connection be a Riemannian manifold with constant curvature.
The aim of the paper is to extend the notion of $α$-geometry in the classical and in the noncommutative case by introducing a more general class of pull-back metrics and to give concrete formulas for the scalar curvature of these Riemannian manifolds. We introduce a more general class of pull-back metrics of the noncommutative state spaces, we pull back the Euclidean Riemannian metric of the space of self-adjoint matrices with functions which have an analytic extension to a neighborhood of the interval $]0,1[$ and whose derivative are nowhere zero. We compute the scalar curvature in this setti…
