Questions tagged [noncommutative-geometry]

Noncommutative geometry in the sense of Connes and beyond: noncommutative algebras viewed as functions on a noncommutative space.

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78 votes
9 answers
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What is the significance of non-commutative geometry in mathematics?

This is a question that has been winding around my head for a long time and I have not found a convincing answer. The title says everything, but I am going to enrich my question by little more ...
Ehsan M. Kermani's user avatar
65 votes
4 answers
11k views

What is a foliation and why should I care?

The title says everything but while it is a little bit provocative let me elaborate a bit about my question. First time when I met the foliation it was just an isolated example in the differential ...
truebaran's user avatar
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61 votes
11 answers
13k views

Non-commutative algebraic geometry

Suppose I tried to take Hartshorne chapter II and re-do all of it with non-commutative rings rather than commutative rings. Is this possible? Which parts work in the non-commutative setting and which ...
Kevin H. Lin's user avatar
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49 votes
2 answers
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How to unify various reconstruction theorems (Gabriel-Rosenberg, Tannaka,Balmers)

What I am talking about are reconstruction theorems for commutative scheme and group from category. Let me elaborate a bit. (I am not an expert, if I made mistake, feel free to correct me) ...
Shizhuo Zhang's user avatar
48 votes
5 answers
13k views

Theories of Noncommutative Geometry

[I have rewritten this post in a way which I hope will remain faithful to the questioner and make it seem more acceptable to the community. I have also voted to reopen it. -- PLC] There are many ...
46 votes
6 answers
4k views

Is there a quaternionic algebraic geometry ?

Let $\mathbb{H}$ be the skew-field of quaternions. I'm aware of the Theorem 1. A function $f:\mathbb{H}\to\mathbb{H}$ which is $\mathbb{H}$-differentiable on the left (i.e. the usual limit $h^{-1}\...
Qfwfq's user avatar
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43 votes
6 answers
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The 'real' use of Quantum Algebra, Non-commutative Geometry, Representation Theory, and Algebraic Geometry to Physics

In this question, Orbicular made the following comment to Feb7 and my own answers; Please keep in mind that - even though it is stated very often - noncommutative geometry does not give "real" ...
B. Bischof's user avatar
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38 votes
7 answers
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Why should algebraic objects have naturally associated topological spaces? (Formerly: What is a topological space?)

In this question, Harry Gindi states: The fact that a commutative ring has a natural topological space associated with it is a really interesting coincidence. Moreover, in the answers, Pete L. ...
Kevin H. Lin's user avatar
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37 votes
1 answer
3k views

Various flavours of infinitesimals

I'm not sure if this is a soft question, and whether it may be too broad or, on the contrary, too localized. Well, in Mathematics the concept of "infinitesimal" has been of extreme importance for ...
Qfwfq's user avatar
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35 votes
6 answers
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Applications of noncommutative geometry

This is related to Anweshi's question about theories of noncommutative geometry. Let's start out by saying that I live, mostly, in a commutative universe. The only noncommutative rings I have much ...
Charles Siegel's user avatar
35 votes
6 answers
4k views

Why Drinfel'd-Jimbo-type quantum groups?

Hopf algebras are pretty easy to motivate, as a not-necessarily-commutative generalization of the ring of functions on an algebraic group (and there are many other ways in which they come up). I like ...
Greg Muller's user avatar
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33 votes
3 answers
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Reference request for translating from Top to C*-alg

Some recent questions on MO (for example, Do subalgebras of C(X) admit a description in terms of the compact Hausdorff space X?) have been about Gelfand duality — namely, that the categories of ...
Matthew Daws's user avatar
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33 votes
5 answers
3k views

How to define a differential form on a fractal?

It is well known how to construct a Laplacian on a fractal using the Dirichlet forms (see e.g. the survey article by Strichartz). This implies, in particular, that a fractal can be "heated", i.e. one ...
Andrey Rekalo's user avatar
31 votes
4 answers
9k views

Why all irreducible representations of compact groups are finite-dimensional ? [EDIT: Subtleties: AC,etc]

About 20 years ago I read in textbook that "all irreducible representations of compact groups are finite-dimensional", but me and the proof of this fact never met each other :) May I ask dear MO ...
Alexander Chervov's user avatar
31 votes
1 answer
3k views

What is about nonassociative geometry?

At the end of a conference given by Alain Connes in 2000 (here is a video in French), a member of the audience asked a question. I transcribed and translated it for you below: Audience: You showed ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
27 votes
8 answers
3k views

Bimodules in geometry

Grothendieck's approach to algebraic geometry in particular tells us to treat all rings as rings of functions on some sort of space. This can also be applied outside of scheme theory (e.g., Gelfand-...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
3k views

What properties "should" spectrum of noncommutative ring have?

There are already a lot of discussion about the motivation for prime spectrum of commutative ring. In my perspective(highly non original), there are following reasons for the importance of prime ...
Shizhuo Zhang's user avatar
23 votes
1 answer
3k views

Grothendieck and Non-commutative Geometry?

When Grothendieck and his followers were working on their profound progress of algebraic geometry, did they ever consider non-commutative rings? Is there anyway evidence that Grothendieck foresaw the ...
Abtan Massini's user avatar
23 votes
4 answers
6k views

What's a noncommutative set?

This issue is for logicians and operator algebraists (but also for anyone who is interested). Let's start by short reminders on von Neumann algebra (for more details, see [J], [T], [W]): Let $H$ ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
23 votes
0 answers
456 views

Topological loops vs. algebro-geometric suspension in Hochschild homology

Let $k$ be a base commutative ring, and let $A$ be a (unital but not necessarily commutative) $k$-algebra. The cone on $A$ is the ring $CA$ of infinite matrices $(a_{ij})_{i,j \geq 1}$ that are ...
Aaron Mazel-Gee's user avatar
22 votes
3 answers
6k views

What is quantum Brownian motion?

It seems that the current state of quantum Brownian motion is ill-defined. The best survey I can find is this one by László Erdös, but the closest the quantum Brownian motion comes to appearing is in ...
Tom LaGatta's user avatar
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21 votes
5 answers
6k views

Reference: Learning noncommutative geometry and C^* algebras

I am starting to study noncommutative geometry and ${\rm C}^*$ algebras so my question is: Does anyone know a good reference on this subject? I would like a basic book with intuitions for ...
Tintin's user avatar
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21 votes
6 answers
3k views

Penrose tilings and noncommutative geometry

Are there "elementary" resources on Penrose Tilings in relation to noncommutative geometry? It's all a big blur to me. There are two transformations S and T that can grow the tilings and every ...
john mangual's user avatar
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20 votes
2 answers
2k views

Geometric interpretation of group rings?

For a group $G$, is there an interpretation of $\mathbb C[G]$ as functions over some noncommutative space? If so, what does this space "look like"? What are its properties? How are they related to ...
Jan Weidner's user avatar
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20 votes
3 answers
2k views

What is the precise relationship between groupoid language and noncommutative algebra language?

I have sitting in front of me two 2-categories. On the left, I have the 2-category GPOID, whose: objects are groupoids; 1-morphisms are (left-principal?) bibundles; 2-morphisms are bibundle ...
Theo Johnson-Freyd's user avatar
20 votes
3 answers
3k views

Noncommutative smooth manifolds

Connes defined a noncommutative analog of a closed oriented Riemannian spin^c manifold using spectral triples. Using his definition it is unclear how to separate the smooth structure from the metric. ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
814 views

Can we define spectral triples using the language of rigged Hilbert spaces?

The traditional mathematical approach to quantum mechanics, as developed by von Neumann, is based on Hilbert spaces and unbounded self-adjoint operators. Another approach, which more closely resembles ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
2k views

Quantum corrections to geometry

In this video Alain Connes made a comment about the ,,quantum corrections'' of the geometry. I would like to understand this notion in some details since I haven't found anything about this in the ...
truebaran's user avatar
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17 votes
2 answers
787 views

Relationship between "different" quantum deformations

This is a generic question, a good answer to it may be a reference to a corresponding paper\textbook, but any useful comments would be okay too. Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a (simple) Lie algebra and $U_q(\...
Peter Koroteev's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
2k views

Realisation of the noncommutative torus as a universal $ C^{*} $-algebra

One of the most basic examples in noncommutative geometry is the so-called noncommutative torus, denoted here by $ \mathbb{T}_{\theta} $. As far as I know, there are several equivalent constructions ...
truebaran's user avatar
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17 votes
4 answers
1k views

What is a noncommutative fiber bundle?

Given a spectral triple (A,H,D) in the sense of Connes, what would be the right notion of a fiber bundle or a principal fiber bundle on it? An example of this type is the Connes' cosphere algebra S*A, ...
Kamran Reihani's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
3k views

If the direct image of f preserves coherent sheaves on noetherian schemes, how to show f is proper?

The other direction is well known. I think it is true and I was told by several other guys doing algebraic geometry that it is indeed true but they did not know how to prove. I am also wondering ...
user41650's user avatar
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16 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is the group von Neumann algebra construction functorial?

Let $G$ be a group and $CG$ the complex group algebra over the field $C$ of complex number. The group von Neumann algebra $NG$ is the completion of $CG$ wrt weak operator norm in $B(l^2(G))$, the set ...
yeshengkui's user avatar
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16 votes
5 answers
3k views

Non-commutative geometry from von Neumann algebras?

The Gelfand transform gives an equivalence of categories from the category of unital, commutative $C^*$-algebras with unital $*$-homomorphisms to the category of compact Hausdorff spaces with ...
Dave Penneys's user avatar
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16 votes
1 answer
2k views

Is there Grothendieck Riemann Roch for abelian category?

From the answers in noncommutative algebraic geometry, one can take abelian category as a scheme(commutative or noncommutative). So I wonder whether anyone ever developed the Grothendieck Riemann Roch ...
Peter Lee 's user avatar
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16 votes
0 answers
585 views

Lifting DG-categories to characteristic zero

The question of lifting (smooth projective) varieties from an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $p$ to characteristic zero (i.e., to the Witt vectors $W(k)$) is a classical one. It's ...
Akhil Mathew's user avatar
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15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why is "naive" definition of non-commutative spectrum bad?

It is well-known that the category of affine schemes is equivalent to the opposit category of commutative unital rings. So naively, one would think that the same should hold in non-commutative setting....
Sasha Patotski's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
650 views

Reference for the Swan-Serre theorem as a monoidal equivalence

Let $X$ be a compact Hausdorff The well-known Swan--Serre theorem gives an equivalence between the continuous vector bundles over a compact Hausdorff space $X$, and finitely-generated projective $C(X)$...
Boris Henriques's user avatar
15 votes
1 answer
1k views

Convolution algebras for double groupoids?

There is a lot of work of course on convolution algebras of measured groupoids, and this gives "Noncommutative geometry". However there is a lot of interest in algebraically structured groupoids, for ...
Ronnie Brown's user avatar
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14 votes
9 answers
2k views

Examples of noncommutative analogs outside operator algebras?

Theo's question made me wonder if there are other "noncommutative analogs" outside of operator algebras. Some noncommutative analogs from operator algebras include: A $C^\ast$-algebra is a ...
Dave Penneys's user avatar
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14 votes
5 answers
2k views

Quantization and noncommutative deformations

Hello, I would like to introduce myself to the theory of quantization and noncommutative deformations of Riemann Poisson structures. In fact, I am familiar with Riemannian and Poisson geometry, but I ...
amine's user avatar
  • 503
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

Relationship between Hochschild cohomology and Drinfeld centers

Let $HH_*(A,N)$ (or $HH^*(A,N)$) be the Hochschild homology (or cohomology) of an associative algebra $A$ with coefficients in an $A$-bimodule $N$. I was reading nlab's entry on Hochschild cohomology ...
Samuel M's user avatar
  • 335
14 votes
3 answers
2k views

What are the motivations for studying Cherednik (symplectic reflection, graded Hecke) algebras?

Several times I have come across these algebras and I wonder why any of these are interesting; I'm very sure they are, but I could not find an answer in the literature. For example (the very general ...
user717's user avatar
  • 5,153
14 votes
2 answers
973 views

Recovering a monoidal category from its category of monoids

What kind of additional properties and/or structures one needs to impose on the category of (commutative or noncommutative) monoids of some monoidal category so that one can recover the original ...
Dmitri Pavlov's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
636 views

Is every finite quantum group a quantum symmetry group?

This post is basically a quantum extension of Is every finite group a group of “symmetries”? Here finite quantum group means finite dimensional Hopf ${\rm C}^{\star}$-algebra. Frucht's theorem ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
2k views

Geometric interpretation of Universal enveloping algebras

Given a complex Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$, we can form its universal enveloping algebra and interpret it as a noncommutative space. Is this perspective useful? What does this space "look like"? How ...
Jan Weidner's user avatar
  • 12.9k
13 votes
6 answers
2k views

Hopf algebras arising as Group Algebras

Every commutative $C^*$-algebra is isomorphic to the set of continuous functions, that vanish at infinity, of a locally compact Hausdorff space. Every commutative finite dimensional Hopf algebra is ...
John McCarthy's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
4k views

What is $\overline{\text{Spec}\mathbb{Z}}$?

In Connes work on the Riemann Hypothesis he talks about constructing $\overline{\text{Spec}\mathbb{Z}}$ as a curve over the field with one element. I just want to know what Spec means. Is the same as ...
Abtan Massini's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
626 views

Is a "smooth" finite-dimensional algebra separable modulo its radical?

Let $k$ be a field, and let us write the "unadorned" tensor $\otimes$ in place of $\otimes_k$. For a unital finite-dimensional $k$-algebra $A$, let $A^e = A \otimes A^{op}$ denote the enveloping ...
Manny Reyes's user avatar
  • 5,142
13 votes
1 answer
493 views

Is there something like "Noncommutative geometry internal to a category"?

I have heard that one can do algebraic geometry internal to symmetric monoidal categories. Topological quantum field theories also exist internal to symmetric monoidal categories, and the usual ...
Manuel Bärenz's user avatar

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