arXiv:math/0408416v1 [math.

KT] 30 Aug 2004

Very Basic Noncommutative Geometry

Masoud Khalkhali
Mathematics Department, University of Western Ontario
London ON, Canada

1
Contents
1 Introduction 2

2 Some examples of geometry-algebra correspondence 11

2.1 Locally compact spaces and commutative C ∗ -algebras . . . . . 11
2.2 Vector bundles and finite projective modules . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Affine varieties and finitely generated commutative reduced algebras 17
2.4 Affine schemes and commutative rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5 Compact Riemann surfaces and algebraic function fields . . . 20
2.6 Sets and Boolean algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3 Noncommutative quotients 21
3.1 Groupoids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 Groupoid algebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 Morita equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3.1 Algebraic theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3.2 Strong Morita equivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.4 Noncommutative quotients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4 Cyclic cohomology 37
4.1 Hochschild (co)homology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.2 Cyclic (co)homology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.1 Connes’ cyclic complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.2 Connes’ long exact sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

5 Chern-Connes character 68

A Banach and C ∗ -algebras 77

A.1 Gelfand’s theory of commutative Banach algebras . . . . . . . 83
A.2 States and the GNS construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

B Idempotents and finite projective modules 93

C Equivalence of categories 97

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1 Introduction
One of the major advances of science in the 20th century was the discovery
of a mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics by Heisenberg in 1925
[41]. From a mathematical point of view, transition from classical mechanics
to quantum mechanics amounts to, among other things, passing from the
commutative algebra of classical observables to the noncommutative algebra
of quantum mechanical observables. Recall that in classical mechanics an ob-
servable (e.g. energy, position, momentum, etc.) is a function on a manifold
called the phase space of the system. Immediately after Heisenberg’s work,
ensuing papers by Dirac [32] and Born-Heisenberg-Jordan [5], made it clear
that a quantum mechanical observable is a (selfadjoint) operator on a Hilbert
space called the state space of the system. Thus the commutative algebra of
functions on a space is replaced by the noncommutative algebra of operators
on a Hilbert space.
A little more than fifty years after these developments, Alain Connes real-
ized that a similar procedure can in fact be applied to areas of mathematics
where the classical notions of space (e.g. measure space, locally compact
space, or a smooth space) looses its applicability and pertinence and can be
replaced by a new idea of space, represented by a noncommutative algebra.
Connes’ theory, which is generally known as noncommutative geometry,
is a rapidly growing new area of mathematics that interacts with and con-
tributes to many disciplines in mathematics and physics. For a recent survey
see Connes’ article [16]. Examples of such interactions and contributions
include: theory of operator algebras, index theory of elliptic operators, alge-
braic and differential topology, number theory, standard model of elementary
particles, quantum Hall effect, renormalization in quantum field theory, and
string theory. (For a description of these relations in more details see the
report below.) To understand the basic ideas of noncommutative geometry
one should perhaps first come to grips with the idea of a noncommutative
space.
The inadequacy of the classical notions of space manifests itself for exam-
ple when one deals with highly singular “bad quotients”; spaces such as the
quotient of a nice space by the ergodic action of a group or the space of leaves
of a foliation. In all these examples the quotient space is typically ill behaved
even as a topological space. For example it may fail to be even Hausdorff,
or have enough open sets, let alone being a reasonably smooth space. The
unitary dual of a noncompact (Lie) group, except when the group is abelian

2
or almost abelian, is another example of an ill behaved space.
One of Connes’ key observations is that in all these situations one can
attach a noncommutative algebra, through a noncommutative quotient con-
struction, that captures most of the information. Examples of this noncom-
mutative quotient construction include crossed product by action of a group,
or by action of a groupoid. In general the noncommutative quotient is the
groupoid algebra of a topological groupoid.
Noncommutative geometry has as its limiting case the classical geom-
etry, but geometry expressed in algebraic terms. Thus to understand its
relation with classical geometry one should first understand one of the most
important ideas of mathematics which can be expressed as a duality between
commutative algebra and geometry. This is by no means a new observation
or a new trend. To the contrary, this duality has always existed and been
utilized in mathematics and its applications. The earliest example is perhaps
the use of numbers in counting! It is, however, the case that throughout the
history each new generation of mathematicians find new ways of formulating
this principle and at the same time broaden its scope. Just to mention a
few highlights of this rich history we mention Descartes (analytic geometry),
Hilbert (affine varieties and commutative algebras), Gelfand-Naimark (lo-
cally compact spaces and commutative C ∗ -algebras), Grothendieck (Schemes
and topos theory), and Connes (noncommutative geometry).
A key idea here is the well-known relation between a space and the com-
mutative algebra of functions on that space. More precisely there is a dual-
ity between certain categories of geometric spaces and categories of algebras
representing those spaces. Noncommutative geometry builds on, and vastly
extends, this fundamental duality between geometry and commutative alge-
bras.
For example, by a celebrated theorem of Gelfand and Naimark [35] one
knows that the category of locally compact Hausdorff spaces is equivalent to
the dual of the category of commutative C ∗ -algebras. Thus one can think of
not necessarily commutative C ∗ -algebras as the dual of a category of non-
commutative locally compact spaces. What makes this a successful proposal
is first of all a rich supply of examples and secondly the possibility of ex-
tending many of the topological and geometric invariants to this new class of
spaces. Let us briefly recall a few other examples from a long list of results
in mathematics that put in duality certain categories of geometric objects
with a corresponding category of algebraic objects.
To wit, Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz states that the category of algebraic vari-

3
eties over an algebraically closed field is equivalent to the dual of the category
of finitely generated commutative algebras without nilpotent elements (so
called reduced algebras). This is a perfect analogue of the Gelfand-Naimark
theorem in the world of commutative algebras.
Similarly, the Serre-Swan theorem states that the category of vector bun-
dles over a compact Hausdorff space (resp. affine algebraic variety) X is
equivalent to the category of finitely generated projective modules over the
algebra of continuous functions (resp. regular functions) on X.
Thus a pervasive idea in noncommutative geometry is to treat (certain
classes) of noncommutative algebras as noncommutative spaces and try to
extend tools of geometry, topology, and analysis to this new setting. It should
be emphasized, however, that, as a rule, this extension is never straightfor-
ward and always involve surprises and new phenomena. For example the
theory of the flow of weights and the corresponding modular automorphism
group in von Neumann algebras has no counterpart in classical measure the-
ory, though the theory of von Neumann algebras is generally regarded as
noncommutative measure theory. Similarly the extension of de Rham ho-
mology for manifolds to cyclic cohomology for noncommutative algebras was
not straightforward and needed some highly nontrivial considerations.
Of all the topological invariants for spaces, topological K-theory has the
most straightforward extension to the noncommutative realm. Recall that
topological K-theory classifies vector bundles on a topological space. Using
the above mentioned Serre-Swan theorem, it is natural to define, for a not
necessarily commutative ring A, K0 (A) as the group defined by the semi-
group of isomorphism classes of finite projective A-modules. The definition
of K1 (A) follows the same pattern as in the commutative case, provided A
is a Banach algebra and the main theorem of topological K-theory, the Bott
periodicity theorem, extends to all Banach algebras.
The situation is much less clear for K-homology, the theory dual to K-
theory. By the work of Atiyah, Brown-Douglas-Fillmore, and Kasparov,
one can say, roughly speaking, that K-homology cycles on a space X are
represented by abstract elliptic operators on X and while K-theory classifies
vector bundles on X, K-homology classifies the abstract elliptic operators
on X. The pairing between K-theory and K-homology takes the form <
[D], [E] >= the Fredholm index of the elliptic operator D with coefficients
in the vector bundle E. Now one good thing about this way of formulating
K-homology is that it almost immediately extends to noncommutative C ∗ -
algebras. The two theories are unified in a single theory called KK-theory

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due to G. Kasparov.
Cyclic cohomology was discovered by Connes in 1981 [11, 13] as the right
noncommutative analogue of de Rham homology of currents and as a target
space for noncommutative Chern character maps from both K-theory and
K-homology. One of the main motivations of Connes seems to be transverse
index theory on foliated spaces. Cyclic cohomology can be used to identify
the K-theoretic index of transversally elliptic operators which lie in the K-
theory of the noncommutative algebra of the foliation. The formalism of
cyclic cohomology and Chern-Connes character maps form an indispensable
part of noncommutative geometry. In a different direction, cyclic homology
also appeared in the 1983 work of Tsygan [60] and was used, independently,
also by Loday and Quillen [54] in their study of the Lie algebra homology
of the Lie algebra of stable matrices over an associative algebra. We won’t
pursue this aspect of cyclic homology in these notes.
A very interesting recent develpoment in cyclic cohomology theory is the
Hopf-cyclic cohomology of Hopf algebras and Hopf module (co)algebras in
general. Motivated by the original work of Connes and Moscovici [18, 19]
this theory is now extended and elaborated on by several authors [1, 2, 38, 39,
49, 50, 51, 52]. There are also very interesting relations between cocycles for
Hopf-cyclic cohomology theory of the Connes-Moscovici Hopf algebra H1 and
operations on spaces of modular forms and modular Hecke algebras [20, 21],
and spaces of Q-lattices [23]. We will say nothing about these develpments
in these notes. Neither we shall discuss the approach of Cuntz and Quillen
to cyclic cohomology theory and their cellebrated proof of excision property
for periodic (bivariant) cyclic cohomology [25, 30, 27, 28, 29].
The following “dictionary” illustrates noncommutative analogues of some
of the classical theories and concepts originally conceived for spaces. In
these notes we deal only with a few items of this dictionary. For a much
fuller account and explanations, as well as applications of noncommutative
geometry, the reader should consult Connes’ beautiful book [15].

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 commutative noncommutative
measure space von Neumann algebra
locally compact space C ∗ - algebra
vector bundle finite projective module
complex variable operator on a Hilbert space
real variable sefadjoint operator
infinitesimal compact operator
range of a function spectrum of an operator
K-theory K-theory
vector field derivation
integral trace
closed de Rham current cyclic cocycle
de Rham complex Hochschild homology
de Rham cohomology cyclic homolgy
Chern character Chern-Connes character
Chern-Weil thoery noncommutative Chern-Weil thoery
elliptic operator K-cycle
spin Riemannian manifold spectral triple
index theorem local index formula
group, Lie algebra Hopf algebra, quantum group
symmetry action of Hopf algebra

Noncommutative geometry is already a vast subject. These notes are just

meant to be an introduction to a few aspects of this fascinating enterprize.
To get a much better sense of the beauty and depth of the subject the reader
should consult Connes’ magnificent book [15] or his recent survey [16] and
references therein. Meanwhile, to give a sense of the state of the subject at
the present time, its relation with other fields of mathematics, and its most
pressing issues, we reproduce here part of the text of the final report prepared
by the organizers of a conference on noncommutative geometry in 2003 1 :

“1. The Baum-Connes conjecture

1
BIRS Workshop on Noncommutative Geometry, Banff International Research Sta-
tion, Banff, Alberta, Canada, April 2003, Organized by Alain Connes, Joachim
Cuntz, George Elliott, Masoud Khalkhali, and Boris Tsygan. Full report available at:
[Link]/birs.

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 This conjecture, in its simplest form, is formulated for any locally compact
topological group. There are more general Baum-Connes conjectures with co-
efficients for groups acting on C*-algebras, for groupoid C*-algebras, etc.,
that for the sake of brevity we don’t consider here. In a nutshell the Baum-
Connes conjecture predicts that the K-theory of the group C*-algebra of a
given topological group is isomorphic, via an explicit map called the Baum-
Connes map, to an appropriately defined K-homology of the classifying space
of the group. In other words invariants of groups defined through noncom-
mutative geometric tools coincide with invariants defined through classical
algebraic topology tools. The Novikov conjecture on the homotopy invari-
ance of higher signatures of non-simply connected manifolds is a consequence
of the Baum-Connes conjecture (the relevant group here is the fundamental
group of the manifold). Major advances were made in this problem in the
past seven years by Higson-Kasparov, Lafforgue, Nest-Echterhoff-Chabert,
Yu, Puschnigg and others.

2. Cyclic cohomology and KK-theory

A major discovery made by Alain Connes in 1981, and independently by

Boris Tsygan in 1983, was the discovery of cyclic cohomology as the right
noncommutative analogue of de Rham homology and a natural target for
a Chern character map from K-theory and K-homology. Coupled with K-
theory, K-homology and KK-theory, the formalism of cyclic cohomology fully
extends many aspects of classical differential topology like Chern-Weil theory
to noncommutative spaces. It is an indispensable tool in noncommutative
geometry. In recent years Joachim Cuntz and Dan Quillen have formulated
an alternative powerful new approach to cyclic homology theories which brings
with it many new insights as well as a successful resolution of an old open
problem in this area, namely establishing the excision property of periodic
cyclic cohomology.
For applications of noncommutative geometry to problems of index theory,
e.g. index theory on foliated spaces, it is necessary to extend the formalism of
cyclic cohomology to a bivariant cyclic theory for topological algebras and to
extend Connes’s Chern character to a fully bivariant setting. The most gen-
eral approach to this problem is due to Joachim Cuntz. In fact the approach of
Cuntz made it possible to extend the domain (and definition) of KK-theory to
very general categories of topological algebras (rather than just C*-algebras).
The fruitfulness of this idea manifests itself in the V. Lafforgue’s proof of the

7
Baum-Connes conjecture for groups with property T, where the extension of
KK functor to Banach algebras plays an important role.
A new trend in cyclic cohomology theory is the study of the cyclic coho-
mology of Hopf algebras and quantum groups. Many noncommutative spaces,
such as quantum spheres and quantum homogeneous spaces, admit a quantum
group of symmetries. A remarkable discovery of Connes and Moscovici in the
past few years is the fact that diverse structures, such as the space of leaves of
a (codimension one) foliation or the space of modular forms, have a unified
quantum symmetry. In their study of transversally elliptic operators on foli-
ated manifolds Connes and Moscovici came up with a new noncommutative
and non-cocommutative Hopf algebra denoted by Hn (the Connes-Moscovici
Hopf algebra). Hn acts on the transverse foliation algebra of codimension n
foliations and thus appears as the quantized symmetries of a foliation. They
noticed that if one extends the noncommutative Chern-Weil theory of Connes
from group and Lie algebra actions to actions of Hopf algebras, then the char-
acteristic classes defined via the local index formula are in the image of this
new characteristic map. This extension of Chern-Weil theory involved the
introduction of cyclic cohomology for Hopf algebras.

3. Index theory and noncommutative geometry

The index theorem of Atiyah and Singer and its various generalizations
and ramifications are at the core of noncommutative geometry and its appli-
cations. A modern abstract index theorem in the noncommutative setting is
the local index formula of Connes and Moscovici. A key ingredient of such
an abstract index formula is the idea of an spectral triple due to Connes.
Broadly speaking, and neglecting the parity, a spectral triple (A, H, D) con-
sists of an algebra A acting by bounded operators on the Hilbert space H and
a self-adjoint operator D on H. This data must satisfy certain regularity
properties which constitute an abstraction of basic elliptic estimates for ellip-
tic PDE’s acting on sections of vector bundles on compact manifolds. The
local index formula replaces the old non-local Chern-Connes cocycle by a new
Chern character form Ch(A, H, D) of the given spectral triple in the cyclic
complex of the algebra A. It is a local formula in the sense that the cochain
Ch(A, H, D) depends, in the classical case, only on the germ of the heat
kernel of D along the diagonal and in particular is independent of smooth
perturbations. This makes the formula extremely attractive for practical cal-
culations. The challenge now is to apply this formula to diverse situations

8
beyond the cases considered so far, namely transversally elliptic operators on
foliations (Connes and Moscovici) and the Dirac operator on quantum SU2
(Connes).

4. Noncommutative geometry and number theory

Current applications and connections of noncommutative geometry to num-

ber theory can be divided into four categories. (1) The work of Bost and
Connes, where they construct a noncommutative dynamical system (B, σt )
with partition function the Riemann zeta function ζ(β), where β is the in-
verse temperature. They show that at the pole β = 1 there is an spontaneous
symmetry breaking. The symmetry group of this system is the group of idéles
which is isomorphic to the Galois group Gal(Qab /Q). This gives a natural
interpretation of the zeta function as the partition function of a quantum sta-
tistical mechanical system. In particular the class field theory isomorphism
appears very naturally in this context. This approach has been extended to
the Dedekind zeta function of an arbitrary number field by Cohen, Harari-
Leichtnam, and Arledge-Raeburn-Laca. All these results concern abelian ex-
tensions of number fields and their generalization to non-abelian extensions is
still lacking. (2) The work of Connes on the Riemann hypothesis. It starts by
producing a conjectural trace formula which refines the Arthur-Selberg trace
formula. The main result of this theory states that this trace formula is valid
if and only if the Riemann hypothesis is satisfied by all L-functions with
Grössencharakter on the given number field k. (3) The work of Connes and
Moscovici on quantum symmetries of the modular Hecke algebras A(Γ) where
they show that this algebra admits a natural action of the transverse Hopf al-
gebra H1 . Here Γ is a congruence subgroup of SL(2, Z) and the algebra A(Γ)
is the crossed product of the algebra of modular forms of level Γ by the ac-
tion of the Hecke operators. The action of the generators X, Y and δn of H1
corresponds to the Ramanujan operator, to the weight or number operator,
and to the action of certain group cocycles on GL+ (2, Q), respectively. What
is very surprising is that the same Hopf algebra H1 also acts naturally on
the (noncommutative) transverse space of codimension one foliations. (4)
Relations with arithmetic algebraic geometry and Arakelov theory. This is
currently being pursued by Consani, Deninger, Manin, Marcolli and others.

5. Deformation quantization and quantum geometry

9
 The noncommutative algebras that appear in noncommutative geometry
usually are obtained either as the result of a process called noncommutative
quotient construction or by deformation quantization of some algebra of func-
tions on a classical space. These two constructions are not mutually exclu-
sive. The starting point of deformation quantization is an algebra of functions
on a Poisson manifold where the Poisson structure gives the infinitesimal di-
rection of quantization. The existence of deformation quantizations for all
Poisson manifolds was finally settled by M. Kontsevich in 1997 after a series
of partial results for symplectic manifolds. The algebra of pseudodifferential
operators on a manifold is a deformation quantization of the algebra of classi-
cal symbols on the cosphere bundle of the manifold. This simple observation
is the beginning of an approach to the proof of the index theorem, and its
many generalizations by Elliott-Natsume-Nest and Nest-Tsygan, using cyclic
cohomology theory. The same can be said about Connes’s groupoid approach
to index theorems. In a different direction, quantum geometry also consists
of the study of noncommutative metric spaces and noncommutative complex
structures.”

Let us now briefly describe the contents of these notes. In Section 2 we

describe some of the fundamental algebra-geometry correspondences at work
in mathematics. The most basic ones for noncommutative geometry are the
Gelfand-Naimark and the Serre-Swan theorems. In Section 3 we describe the
noncommutative quotient construction and give several examples. This is
one of the most universal methods of constructing noncommutative spaces
directly related to classical geometric examples. Section 4 is devoted to cyclic
cohomology and its various definitions. In Section 5 we define the Chern-
Connes character map, or the noncommutative Chern character map, from
K-theory to cyclic cohomology. In an effort to make these notes as self
contained as possible, we have added three appendices covering very basic
material on C ∗ -algebras, projective modules, and category theory language.
These notes are partly based on series of lectures I gave at the Fields
Institute in Toronto, Canada, in Fall 2002 and at the Institute for Advanced
Studies in Physics and Mathematics (IPM), Tehran, Iran, in Spring 2004. I
also used part of these notes in my lectures at the second annual spring insti-
tute and workshop on noncommutative geometry in Spring 2004, Vanderbilt
University, USA. It is a great pleasure to thank the organizers of this event,
Alain Connes (director), to whom I owe much more than I can adequately
express, Dietmar Bisch, Bruce Hughes, Gennady Kasparov, and Guoliang

10
Yu. I would also like to thank Reza Khosrovshahi the director of the math-
ematics division of IPM in Tehran whose encouragement and support was
instrumental in bringing these notes to existence.

2 Some examples of geometry-algebra cor-

respondence
We give several examples of geometry-commutative algebra correspondences.
They all put into correspondence, or duality, certain categories of geometric
objects with a category of algebraic objects. Presumably, the more one knows
about these relations the better one is prepared to pursue noncommutative
geometry.

2.1 Locally compact spaces and commutative C ∗-algebras

In functional analysis the celebrated Gelfand-Naimark Theorem [35] states
that the category of locally compact Hausdorff spaces is anti-equivalent to
the category of commutative C ∗ -algebras:
{locally compact Hausdorff spaces} ≃ {commutative C ∗ -algebras}op .
Let S be the category whose objects are locally compact Hausdorff spaces
and whose morphisms are continuous and proper maps. (Recall that a map
f : X → Y is called proper if for any compact K ⊂ Y, f −1 (K) is compact;
of course, if X is compact and f is continuous, then f is proper).
Let C be the category whose objects are commutative C ∗ -algebras and
whose morphisms are proper ∗-homomorphisms. (A ∗ -homomorphism f :
A → B is called proper if for any approximate identity (ei ) in A, f (ei ) is an
approximate identity in B. See Appendix A for definitions.)
Define two contravariant functors
C0 : C → S, Ω : S → C,
as follows. For a locally compact Hausdorff space X, let C0 (X) denote the
algebra of complex valued continuous functions on X that “vanish at ∞”.
This means for any ǫ > 0 there is a compact subset K ⊂ X such that
|f (x)| < ǫ for x ∈
/ K:
C0 (X) = {f : X → C, f is continuous and f (∞) = 0}.

11
Under pointwise addition and scalar multiplication C0 (X) is obviously an
algebra over the field of complex numbers C. Endowed with the sup-norm

kf k = kf k∞ = sup{|f (x)|; x ∈ X},

and ∗-operation
f 7→ f ∗ , f ∗ (x) = f¯(x),
one checks that C0 (X) is a commutative C ∗ -algebra. If f : X → Y is a
continuous and proper map, let

C0 (f ) = f ∗ : C0 (Y ) −→ C0 (X), f ∗ (g) = g ◦ f,

be the pullback of f . It is a proper ∗- homomorphism of C ∗ -algebras. We

have thus defined the functor C0 .
To define Ω, called the functor of points or the spectrum functor, let A
be a commutative C ∗ -algebra. Let

Ω(A) = set of characters of A = HomC (A, C),

where a character is simply a nonzero algebra map A → C. (it turns out

that they are also ∗-morphisms). Ω(A) is a locally compact Hausdorff space
under the topology of pointwise convergence. Given a proper morphism of
C ∗ -algebras f : A → B, let

Ω(f ) : Ω(B) → Ω(A), Ω(f ) = f ∗ ,

where f ∗ (ϕ) = ϕ ◦ f . It can be shown that Ω(f ) is a proper and continuous

map.
To show that C0 and Ω are equivalences of categories, quasi-inverse to
each other, one shows that for any locally compact Hausdorff space X and
any commutative C ∗ -algebra A, there are natural isomorphisms
∼
X −→ Ω(C0 (X)), x 7→ ex ,
∼
A −→ C0 (Ω(A)), a 7→ â.
Here ex is the evaluation at x map defined by ex (f ) = f (x), and a 7→ â is the
celebrated Gelfand transform defined by â(ϕ) = ϕ(a). The first isomorphism
is much easier to establish and does not require the theory of Banach algebras.
The second isomorphism is what is proved by Gelfand and Naimark in 1943

12
[35] using Gelfand’s theory of commutative Banach algebras. We sketch a
proof of this result is Appendix A.
Under the Gelfand-Naimark correspondence compact Hausdorff spaces
correspond to unital C ∗ -algebras. We therefore have a duality, or equivalence
of categories
{compact Hausdorff spaces} ≃ {commutative unital C ∗ -algebras}op .
Based on Gelfand-Naimark theorem, we can think of the dual of the cate-
gory of not necessarily commutative C ∗ -algebras as the category of noncom-
mutative locally compact Hausdorff spaces. Various operations and concepts
for spaces can be paraphrased in terms of algebras of functions on spaces and
can then be immediately generalized to noncommutative spaces. This is the
easy part of noncommutative geometry! Here is a dictionary suggested by
the Gelfand-Naimark theorem:

space algebra
compact unital
1-point compactification unitization
Stone-Cech compactification multiplier algebra
closed subspace; inclusion closed ideal; quotient algebra
surjection injection
injection surjection
homoemorphism automorphism
Borel measure positive functional
probability measure state
disjoint union direct sum
cartesian product minimal tensor product

2.2 Vector bundles and finite projective modules

Swan’s Theorem [59] states that the category of complex vector bundles on a
compact Hausdorff space X is equivalent to the category of finite (i.e. finitely
generated) projective modules over the algebra C(X) of continuous functions
on X:
{vector bundles on X} ≃ {finite projective C(X)-modules}.
There are similar results for real and quaternionic vector bundles [59]. This
result was motivated and in fact is the topological counterpart of a an analo-
gous result, due to Serre, which characterizes algebraic vector bundles over an

13
affine algebraic variety as finite projective modules over the coordinate ring
of the variety. Swan’s theorem sometimes is called the Serre-Swan theorem.
Recall that a right module P over a unital algebra A is called projective
if there exists a right A-module Q such that
M
P ⊕Q≃ A,
I

is a free module. Equivalently, P is projective if every module surjection

P → Q → 0 splits as a right A-module map. P is called finite if there exists
a surjection An → P → 0 for some integer n.
We describe the Serre-Swan correspondence between vector bundles and
finite projective modules. Given a vector bundle p : E → X , let
P = Γ(E) = {s : X → E; ps = idX }
be the set of all continuous global sections of E. It is clear that under fiberwise
scalar multiplication and addition, P is a C(X) module. If f : E → F is a
bundle map, we define a module map Γ(f ) : Γ(E) → Γ(F ) by Γ(f )(s)(x) =
f (s(x)) for all s ∈ Γ(E) and x ∈ X. We have thus defined a functor Γ, called
the global section functor, from the category of vector bundles over X and
continuous bundle maps to the category of C(X)-modules and module maps.
Using compactness of X and a partition of unity one shows that there is
a vector bundle F on X such that E ⊕ F ≃ X × Cn is a trivial bundle. Let
Q be the space of global sections of F . We have
P ⊕ Q ≃ An ,
which shows that P is finite projective.
To show that all finite projective C(X)-modules arise in this way we
proceed as follows. Given a finite projective C(X)-module P , let Q be a
C(X)-module such that P ⊕ Q ≃ An , for some integer n. Let e : An → An be
the right A-linear map corresponding to the projection into first coordinate:
(p, q) 7→ (p, 0). It is obviously an idempotent in Mn (C(X)). One defines a
vector bundle E as the image of this idempotent e:
E = {(x, v); e(x)v = v, for all x ∈ X, v ∈ Cn } ⊂ X × Cn .
Now it is easily shown that Γ(E) ≃ P . With some more work it is shown
that the functor Γ is full and faithful and hence defines an equivalence of
categories.

14
 Based on the Serre-Swan theorem, one usually thinks of finite projective
modules over noncommutative algebras as noncommutative vector bundles.
We give a few examples starting with a commutative one.

Examples

1. The Hopf line bundle on the two sphere S 2 , also known as magnetic
monopole bundle, can be defined in various ways. (It was discovered, inde-
pendently, by Hopf and Dirac in 1931, motivated by very different consider-
ations). Here is an approach that lends itself to noncommutative generaliza-
tions. Let σ1 , σ2 , σ3 , be three matrices in M2 (C) that satisfy the canonical
anticommutation relations:
σi σj + σj σi = 2δij ,
for all i, j = 1, 2, 3. Here δij is the Kronecker symbol. A canonical choice is
the so called Pauli spin matrices:
     
0 1 0 i 1 0
σ1 = , σ2 = , σ3 = .
1 0 −i 0 0 −1
Define a function
F : S 2 → M2 (C), F (x1 , x2 , x3 ) = x1 σ1 + x2 σ2 + x3 σ3 ,
where x1 , x2 , x3 are coordinate functions on S 2 so that x21 +x22 +x23 = 1. Then
F 2 (x) = I2×2 for all x ∈ S 2 and therefore
1+F
e=
2
is an idempotent in M2 (C(S 2 )). It thus defines a complex vector bundle on
S 2 . We have,  
1 1 + x3 x1 + ix2
e(x1 , x2 , x3 ) = .
2 x1 − ix2 1 − x3
Since
rank F (x) = trace F (x) = 1
for all x ∈ S 2 , we have in fact a complex line bundle over S 2 . It can be shown
that it is the line bundle associated to the Hopf fibration
S 1 → S 3 → S 2.

15
 Incidentally, e induces a map f : S 2 → P 1 (C), where f (x) is the 1-
dimensional subspace defined by the image of F (x), which is 1-1 and onto.
Our line bundle is just the pull back of the canonical line bundle over P 1 (C).
This example can be generalized to higher dimensional spheres. One can
construct matrices σ1 , · · · , σ2n+1 in M2n (C) satisfying the Clifford algebra
relations [45]
σi σj + σj σi = 2δij ,
for all i, j = 1, · · · , 2n + 1. Define a matrix valued function F on the 2n
dimensional sphere S 2n , F ∈ M2n (C(S 2n )) by
2n+1
X
F = xi σi .
i=1
1+F
Then F 2 (x) = 1 for all x ∈ S 2n and hence e = 2
is an idempotent.

2. (Hopf line bundle on quantum spheres)

The Podleś quantum sphere Sq2 is the ∗-algebra generated over C by the
elements a, a∗ and b subject to the relations
aa∗ + q −4 b2 = 1, a∗ a + b2 = 1, ab = q −2 ba, a∗ b = q 2 ba∗ .
The quantum analogue of the Dirac(or Hopf) monopole line bundle over
S 2 is given by the following idempotent in M2 (Sq2 ) [6]
 
1 1 + q −2 b qa
eq = .
2 q −1 a∗ 1 − b
It can be directly checked that e2q = eq .

3. (Projective modules on the noncommutative torus)

Let us first recall the definition of the smooth noncommutative torus Aθ [10].
Among several possible definitions the following is the most direct one. Let
θ ∈ R be a fixed parameter and let
X
Aθ = { amn U m V n ; (amn ) ∈ S(Z2 )},
m,n∈Z

where S(Z2 ) is the Schwartz space of rapidly decreasing sequences (amn ) ∈ C

indexed by Z2 . The relation
V U = e2πiθ UV,

16
defines an algebra structure on Aθ .
Let E = S(R) be the Schwartz space of rapidly decreasing functions on R.
It is easily checked that the following formulas define an Aθ module structure
on E:
(Uf )(x) = f (x + θ), (V f )(x) = e−2πiθ f (x).
It can shown that E is finite and projective [10].
This construction can be generalized [10, 24, 58]. Let n, m be integers
with m > 0 and let En,m = S(R × Zm ), where Zm is the cyclic group of order
m. The following formulas define an Aθ module structure on En,m :
n
(Uf )(x, j) = f (x + θ − , j − 1),
m
n
(V f )(x, j) = e2πi(x−j m ) f (x, j).

It can be shown that when n − mθ 6= 0, the module En,m is finite and

projective. In particular for irrational θ it is always finite and projective.
For more examples of noncommutative vector bundles see [22].

2.3 Affine varieties and finitely generated commuta-

tive reduced algebras
In commutative algebra, Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz [9] states that the cate-
gory of affine algebraic varieties over an algebraically closed field F is anti-
equivalent to the category of finitely generated commutative reduced unital
F algebras:
{affine algebraic varieties} ≃
{finitely generated commutative reduced algebras}op .
Recall that an affine algebraic variety (sometimes called an algebraic set)
over a field F is a subset of an affine space Fn which is the set of zeros of a
set of polynomials in n variables over F. A morphism between affine varieties
V ⊂ Fn and W ⊂ Fm is a map f : V −→ W which is the restriction of a
polynomial map Fn → Fm . It is clear that affine varieties and morphisms
between them form a category.
A reduced algebra is by definition an algebra with no nilpotent elements,
i.e. if xn = 0 for some n then x = 0.

17
 The above correspondence associates to a variety V ⊂ Fn its coordinate
ring F[V ] defined by

F[V ] := HomAf f (V, {pt}) ≃ F[x1 , · · · , xn ]/I,

where I is the vanishing ideal of V defined by

I = {f ∈ F[x1 , · · · , xn ]; f (x) = 0 for all x ∈ V }.

Obviously F[V ] is a finitely generated commutative unital reduced algebra.

Moreover, Given a morphism of varieties f : V → W , its pull-back defines
an algebra homomorphism f ∗ : F[W ] → F[V ]. We have thus defined the con-
travariant coordinate ring functor from affine varieties to finitely generated
reduced commutative unital algebras.
Given a finitely generated commutative unital algebra A with n genera-
tors we can write it as
A ≃ F[x1 , · · · , xn ]/I,
where the ideal I is a radical ideal if and only if A is a reduced algebra. Let

V := {x ∈ Fn ; f (x) = 0 for all f ∈ I},

denote the variety defined by the ideal I. The classical form of Nullstellensatz
[40] states that if F is algebraically closed and A is reduced then A can be
recovered as the coordinate ring of the variety V :

F[V ] ≃ A = F[x1 , · · · , xn ]/I.

This is the main step in showing that the coordinate ring functor is an anti-
equivalence of categories. Showing that the functor is full and faithful is
easier. In Section 6 we sketch a proof of this fact when F is the field of
complex numbers.

2.4 Affine schemes and commutative rings

The above correspondence between finitely generated reduced commutative
algebras and affine varieties in not an ideal result. One is naturally interested
in larger classes of algebras, like algebras with nilpotent elements as well
as algebras over fields which are not algebraically closed or algebras over
arbitrary rings; this last case in particularly important in number theory.

18
In general one wants to know what kind of geometric objects correspond to
a commutative ring and how this correspondence goes. Affine schemes are
exactly defined to address this question. We follow the exposition in [40].
Let A be a commutative unital ring. The prime spectrum (or simply the
spectrum) of A is a pair (SpecA, OA ) where SpecA is a topological space and
OA is a sheaf of rings on SpecA defined as follows. As a set SpecA consists
of all prime ideals of A (an ideal I ⊂ A is called prime if for all a, b in
A, ab ∈ A implies that either a ∈ I, or b ∈ I). Given an ideal I ⊂ A, let
V (I) ⊂ SpecA be the set of all prime ideals which contain I. We can define a
topology on SpecA, called the Zariski topology, by declaring sets of the type
V (I) to be closed (this makesPsense since the easily established relations
V (IJ) = V (I) ∪ V (J) and V ( Ii ) = ∩V (Ii ) show that the intersection of
a family of closed sets is closed and the union of two closed sets is closed
as well). One checks that SpecA is always compact but is not necessarily
Hausdorff.
For each prime ideal p ⊂ A, let Ap denote the localization of A at p.
For an open set U ⊂ SpecA, let OA (U) be the set of all continuous sections
s : U → ∪p∈U Ap . (By definition a section s is called continuous if locally
around any point p ∈ U it is of the form fg , with g ∈
/ p). One checks that OA
is a sheaf of commutative rings on SpecA.
Now (SpecA, OA ) is a so called ringed space and A 7→ (SpecA, OA ) is
functor called the spectrum functor. A unital ring homomorphism f : A → B
defines a continuous map f ∗ : SpecB → SpecA by f ∗ (p) = f −1 (p) for all
prime ideals p ⊂ B. (note that if I is a maximal ideal f −1 (I) is not necessarily
maximal. This is one of the reasons one considers, for arbitrary rings, the
prime spectrum and not the maximal spectrum.)
An affine scheme is a ringed space (X, O) such that X is homeomorphic
to SpecA for a commutative ring A and O is isomorphic to OA . The spectrum
functor defines an equivalence of categories

{affine schemes} ≃ { commutative rings}op .

The inverse equivalence is given by the global section functor that sends
an affine scheme to the ring of its global sections.
In the same vein categories of modules over a ring can be identified with
categories of sheaves of modules over the spectrum of the ring. Let A be a
commutative ring and let M be an A-module. We define a sheaf of modules
M over SpecA as follows. For each prime ideal p ⊂ A, let Mp denote the

19
localization of M at p. For any open set U ⊂ SpecA let M(U) denote the set
of continuous sections s : U −→ ∪p Mp (this means that s is locally a fraction
m
f
with m ∈ M and f ∈ Ap ). One can recover M from M by showing that
M ≃ ΓM is the space of global sections of M. The functors M 7→ M and
M 7→ ΓM define equivalence of categories [40]:

{modules over A} ≃ {quasi-coherent sheaves on Spec A}.

2.5 Compact Riemann surfaces and algebraic function

fields
It can be shown that the category of compact Riemann surfaces is anti-
equivalent to the category of algebraic function fields:

{compact Riemann surfaces} ≃ {algebraic function fields}op .

Recall that a Riemann surface is a complex manifold of complex dimen-

sion one. A morphism between Riemann surfaces X and Y is a holomorphic
map f : X → Y .
An algebraic function field is a finite extension of the field C(x) of rational
functions in one variable. A morphism of function fields is simply an algebra
map.
To a compact Riemann surface one associates the field M(X) of mero-
morphic functions on X. For example the field of meromorphic functions
on the Riemann sphere is the field of rational functions C(x). In the other
direction, to a finite extension of C(x) one associates the compact Riemann
surface of the algebraic function p(z, w) = 0. Here w is a generator of the
field over C(x). This correspondence is essentially due to Riemann.

2.6 Sets and Boolean algebras

Perhaps the simplest notion of space, free of any extra structure, is the
concept of a set. In a sense set theory can be regarded as the geometrization
of logic. There is a duality between the category of sets and the category of
complete atomic Boolean algebras (see, e.g., M. Barr’s Acyclic Models, CRM
Monograph Series, Vol 17, AMS publications, 2002):

{sets} ≃ {complete atomic Boolean algebras}op .

20
 Recall that a Boolean algebra is a unital ring B in which x2 = x for all x
in B. A Boolean algebra is necessarily commutative as can be easily shown.
One defines an order relation on B by declaring x ≤ y if there is an y ′ such
that x = yy ′. It can be checked that this is in fact a partial order relation on
B. An Atom in a Boolean algebra is an element x such that x > 0 and there
is no y with 0 < y < x. A Boolean algebra is atomic if every element x is the
supremos of all the atoms smaller than x. A Boolean algebra is complete if
every subset has a supremum and infimum. A morphism of complete Boolean
algebras is a unital ring map which preserves all infs and sups. (Of course
any unital ring map between Boolean algebras preserves finite sups and infs).
Now, given a set S let

B = 2S = {f : S −→ 2},

where 2 := {0, 1}. Note that B is a complete atomic Boolean algebra. Any
map f : S → T between sets defines a morphism of complete atomic Boolean
algebras via pullback: f ∗ (g) := g ◦ f , and S 7→ 2S is a contravariant functor.
In the opposite direction, given a Boolean algebra B, one defines its
spectrum Ω(B) by
Ω(B) = HomBoolean (B, 2),
where we now think of 2 as a Boolean algebra with two elements. It can be
shown that the two functors that we have defined are anti-equivalences of
categories, quasi-inverse to each other. Thus once again we have a duality
between a certain category of geometric objects, namely sets, and a category
of commutative algebras, namely complete atomic Boolean algebras.

3 Noncommutative quotients
In this section we recall the method of noncommutative quotients as ad-
vanced by Connes in [15]. This is a technique that allows one to replace “bad
quotients” by nice noncommutative spaces, represented by noncommutative
algebras. In some cases, like noncommutative quotients for group actions,
the noncommutative quotient can be defined as a crossed product algebra.
In general, however, noncommutative quotients are defined as groupoid al-
gebras. In Section 3.1 we recall the definition of a groupoid together with its
various refinements like topological, smooth and étale groupoids. In Section
3.2 we define the groupoid algebra of a groupoid and give several examples.

21
An important concept is Morita equivalence of algebras. We treat both the
purely algebraic theory as well as the notion of strong Morita equivalence for
C ∗ -algebras in Section 3.3. Finally noncommutative quotients are defined in
Section 3.4.

3.1 Groupoids
Definition 3.1. A groupoid is a small category in which every morphism is
an isomorphism.
Let G be groupoid. We denote the set of objects of G by G (0) and, by a
small abuse of notation, the set of morphisms of G by G. Every morphism
has a source, has a target and has an inverse. They define maps, denoted by
s, t, and i, respectively,
s : G −→ G (0) , t : G −→ G (0) ,
i : G −→ G.
Composition γ1 ◦γ2 of morphisms γ1 and γ2 is only defined if s(γ1 ) = t(γ2 ).
Composition defines a map
◦ : G (2) = {(γ1, γ2 ); s(γ1 ) = t(γ2 )} −→ G.
Examples
1. (Groups). Every group G defines at least two groupoids in a natural way:
1.a Define a category G with one object * and
HomG (∗, ∗) = G,
where the composition of morphisms is simply the group multiplication. This
is obviously a groupoid.

2.b Define a category G with

obj G = G, HomG (s, t) = {g ∈ G; gsg −1 = t}.
Again, with composition defined by group multiplication, G is a groupoid.
2. (Equivalence relations) Let ∼ denote an equivalence relation on a set
X. We define a groupoid G, called the graph of ∼, as follows. Let
obj G = X, HomG (x, y) = ∗ if x ∼ y,
= ∅ otherwise.

22
 Note that the set of morphisms of G is identified with the graph of the
relation ∼ in the usual sense:

G = {(x, y); x ∼ y} ⊂ X × X.

Two extreme cases of this graph construction are particularly important.

When the equivalence relation reduces to equality, i.e., x ∼ y iff x = y, we
have
G = ∆(X) = {(x, x); x ∈ X}.
On the other extreme when x ∼ y for all x and y, we obtain the groupoid of
pairs where
G = X × X.
3. (Group actions). Example 1) can be generalized as follows. Let

G × X −→ X, (g, x) 7→ gx,

denote the action of a group G on a set X. We define a groupoid G = X ⋊ G,

called the transformation groupoid of the action, as follows. Let obj G = X,
and
HomG (x, y) = {g ∈ G; gx = y}.
Composition of morphisms is defined via group multiplication. It is easily
checked that G is a groupoid. Its set of morphisms can be identified as

G ≃ X × G,

where the composition of morphisms is given by

(gx, h) ◦ (x, g) = (x, hg).

Note that Example 1.a corresponds to the action of a group on a point and
example 1.b corresponds to the action of a group on itself via conjugation.
As we shall see, one can not get very far with just discrete groupoids. To
get really interesting examples like the groupoids associated to continuous
actions of topological groups and to foliations, one needs to consider topo-
logical as well as smooth groupoids, much in the same way as one studies
topological and Lie groups.
A topological groupoid is a groupoid such that its set of morphisms G, and
set of objects G (0) are topological spaces, and its composition, source, target
and inversion maps are continuous.

23
 A special class of topological groupoids, called étale or r-discrete groupoids,
are particularly convenient to work with. An étale groupoid is a topological
groupoid such that its set of morphisms G is a locally compact topological
space and the fibers of the target map t : G → G (0)

G x = t−1 (x), x ∈ G (0) ,

are discrete.
A Lie groupoid is a groupoid such that G and G (0) are smooth manifolds,
the inclusion G (0) → G as well as the maps s, t, i and the composition map ◦
are smooth, and s and t are submersions. This last condition will gaurantee
that the domain of the composition map G (2) = {(γ1, γ2 ); s(γ1 ) = t(γ2 )} is a
smooth manifold.

Examples:

1. Let G be a discrete group acting by homeomorphisms on a locally compact

Hausdorff space X. The transformation groupoid X ⋊ G is naturally an étale
groupoid. If G is a Lie group acting smoothly on a smooth manifold X, then
the transformation groupoid X ⋊ G is a Lie groupoid.

2. Let (V, F ) be a foliated manifold and let T be a complete transversal for

the foliation. This means that T is transversal to the leaves of the foliation
and each leaf has at least one intersection with T . One defines an (smooth)
étale groupoid G as follows. The objects of G is the transversal T with its
smooth structure. For any two points x and y in T let HomG (x, y) = ∅ if x
and y are not in the same leaf. When they are in the same leaf, say L, let
HomG (x, y) denote the set of all continuous paths in L connecting x and y
modulo the equivalence relation defined by holonomy. It can be shown that
G is an smooth étale groupoid (cf. [15] for details and many examples).

3.2 Groupoid algebras

The notion of groupoid algebra of a groupoid is a generalization of the notion
of group algebra (or convolution algebra) of a group and it reduces to group
algebras for groupoids with one object. To define the groupoid algebra of
a locally compact topological groupoid in general one needs the analogue of
a Haar measure for groupoids called a Haar system. While we won’t recall

24
its general definition here, we should mention that, unlike locally compact
groups, an arbirtary locally compact groupoid need not have a Haar system
[56]. For discrete groupoids as well as étale groupoids and Lie groupoids,
however, the convolution product can be easily defined. We start by recalling
the definition of the groupoid algebra of a discrete groupoid. As we shall see,
in the discrete case the groupoid algebra can be easily described in terms of
matrix algebras and group algebras.
Let G be a discrete groupoid and let
M
CG = Cγ,
γ∈G

denote the vector space generated by the set of morphisms of G as its basis.
The formula

γ1 γ2 = γ1 ◦ γ2 , if γ1 ◦ γ2 is defined,
γ1 γ2 = 0, otherwise,

defines an associative product on CG. The resulting algebra is called the

groupoid algebra of the groupoid G. Note that CG is unital if and only if the
set G (0) of objects of G is finite. The unit then is given by
X
1= idx .
x∈G 0

An alternative description of the groupoid algebra CG which is more

appropriate for generalization to étale and topological groupoids is as follows.
Note that
CG ≃ {f : G → C; f has finite support},
and the product is given by the convolution product
X
(f g)(γ) = f (γ1 )g(γ2).
γ1 ◦γ2 =γ

Given an étale groupoid G, Let

Cc (G) = {f : G → C; f is continuous and has compact support}.

Under the above convolution product Cc (G) is an algebra called the convolu-
tion algebra of G. Note that for any γ the above sum is finite (why?) and the
convolution of two functions with compact support has compact support.

25
 When the groupoid is the transformation groupoid of a group action, the
groupoid algebra reduces to a crossed product algebra. We recall its general
definition. Let G be a discrete group, A be an algebra and let Aut(A)
denote the group of automorphisms of A. An action of G on A is a group
homomorphism
α : G −→ Aut(A).
Sometimes one refers to the triple (A, G, α) as a noncommutative dynamical
system. We use the simplified notation g(a) := α(g)(a). The crossed product
or semidirect product algebra A ⋊ G is defined as follows. As a vector space

A ⋊ G = A ⊗ CG.

Its product is defined by

(a ⊗ g)(b ⊗ h) = ag(b) ⊗ gh.

It is easily checked that endowed with the above product, A ⋊ G is an as-

sociative algebra. It is unital if and only if A is unital and G acts by unital
automorphisms.
One checks that A ⋊ G is the universal algebra generated by subalgebras
A and CG subject to the relation

gag −1 = g(a),

for all g in G and a in A.

We need a C ∗ -algebraic analogue of the above construction. In the above
situation assume that A is a C ∗ -algebra and let Aut(A) denote the group of
C ∗ -automorphisms of A. We define a pre-C ∗ norm on the algebraic crossed
product A ⋊ G as follows. We choose a faithful representation

π : A −→ L(H)

of A on a Hilbert space H and then define a faithful representation of the

algebraic crossed product A ⋊ G on the Hilbert space l2 (G, H) by

(a ⊗ g)(ψ)(h) = π(a)ψ(g −1 h).

The reduced C ∗ -crossed product A ⋊r G is by definition the completion of the

algebraic crossed product with respect to the norm induced from the above
faithful representation. It can be shown that this definition is independent

26
of the choice of the faithful representation π [31].

Examples:

1. It is not difficult to determine the general form of the groupoid algebra of

a discrete groupoid. Let [
G0 = Gi0
i

denote the decomposition of the set of objects of G into its “connected com-
ponents”. By definition two objects x and y belong to the same connected
component if there is a morphism γ with source (γ) = x and target (γ) = y.
We have a direct sum decomposition of the groupoid algebra CG:
M
CG ≃ CGi .
i

Thus suffices to consider only groupoids with a connected set of objects.

Choose an object x0 ∈ G 0 , and let

G = HomG (x0 , x0 )

be the isotropy group of x0 . Assume first that G = {1} is the trivial group.
For simplicity assume that G 0 is a finite set with n elements. In other words
our groupoid G is the groupoid of pairs on a set of n elements. Recall that

G = {(i, j); i, j = 1, · · · n}

with composition given by

(l, k) ◦ (j, i) = (l, i) if k = j.

(Composition is not defined otherwise).

We claim that
CG ≃ Mn (C).
Indeed it is easily checked that the map

(i, j) 7→ Ei,j ,

where Ei,j denote the matrix units defines an algebra isomorphism.

27
Remark 1. As is emphasized by Connes in the opening section of [15], this
is in fact the way Heisenberg discovered matrices in the context of quantum
mechanics [41]. In other words noncommutative algebras appeared first in
quantum mechanics as a groupoid algebra! We recommend the reader care-
fully examine the arguments of [41] and [15].
In general, but still assuming that G (0) is connected, it is easy to see that
CG ≃ CG ⊗ Mn (C),
where G = HomG (x0 , x0 ) is the isotropy group of G.

2. We look at groupoid algebras of certain étale groupoids.

a. We start by an example from [15]: an étale groupoid defined by an

equivalence relation. Let
X = [0, 1] × {1} ∪ [0, 1] × {2}
denote the disjoint union of two copies of the interval [0, 1]. Let ∼ denote the
equivalence relation that identifies (x, 1) in the first copy with (x, 2) in the
second copy for 0 < x < 1. Let G denote the corresponding groupoid with
its topology inherited from X × X. It is clear that G is an étale groupoid.
The elements of the groupoid algebra Cc (G) can be identified as continuous
matrix valued functions on [0, 1] satisfying some boundary condition:
Cc (G) = {f : [0, 1] → M2 (C); f (0) and f (1) are diagonal}.
b. Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff space and assume a discrete group
G acts on X by homemorphisms. The induced action on A = Cc (X), the
algebra of continuous C-valued functions on X with compact support, is
defined by
(gf )(x) = f (g −1x)
for all f ∈ A, g ∈ G, and x ∈ X. Let G = X ⋊ G denote the transformation
groupoid defined by the action of G on X.
Exercise: Show that we have an algebra isomorphism
Cc (X ⋊ G) ≃ Cc (X) ⋊ G.
The groupoid C ∗ -algebra Cr∗ (G), though we have not defined it as such,
turns out to be isomorphic with the reduced crossed product algebra C0 (X)⋊r

28
G.

3. Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff space and let G denote the groupoid
of pairs on X. Its groupoid C ∗ -algebra C ∗ G is defined as follows. Let µ be
a positive Borel measure on X. We define a convolution product and an
∗-operation on the space of morphisms of G, Cc (X × X), by
Z
f ∗ g(x, y) = f (x, z)g(z, y)dµ(z),
X
∗
f (x, y) = f (y, x).

These operations turn Cc (X × X) into an ∗-algebra. Convolution product

defines a canonical ∗-representation of this algebra on L2 (X, µ) by

Cc (X × X) −→ L(L2 (X, µ)), f 7→ f ∗ −.

The integral operator associated to a continuous function with compact sup-

port is a compact operator and it can be shown that the completion of the
image of this map is the space of compact operators on L2 (X, µ). Thus we
have
C ∗ G ≃ K(L2 (X, µ).
In the other extreme, for the equivalence relation defined by equality the
groupoid C ∗ -algebra is given by

C ∗ G ≃ C0 (X).

These two examples are continuous C ∗ -analogues of our discrete example

1 above.

3.3 Morita equivalence

3.3.1 Algebraic theory
In this section algebra means an associative unital algebra over a commuta-
tive ground ring k. All modules are assumed to be unitary in the sense that
the unit of the algebra acts as identity operator on the module. Let A be an
algebra. We denote by MA the category of right A-modules.
Algebras A and B are called Morita equivalent if there is an equivalence
of categories
MA ≃ MB .

29
 In general there are many ways to define a functor F : MA → MB . By
a simple observation of Eilenberg-Watts, however, if F preserves finite limits
and colimits, then there exists a unique A − B bimodule X such that

F (M) = M ⊗A X, for all M ∈ MA .

Composition of functors obtained in this way simply correspond to the bal-

anced tensor product of the defining bimodules. It is therefore clear that A
and B are Morita equivalent if and only if there exists an A − B bimodule
X and a B − A bimodule Y such that we have isomorphisms of bimodules

X ⊗B Y ≃ A, Y ⊗A X ≃ B,

where the A-bimodule structure on A is defined by a(b)c = abc, and similarly

for B. Such bimodules are called invertible (or equivalence) bimodules.
Given an A − B bimodule X, we define algebra homomorphisms

A −→ EndB (X), B −→ EndA (X),

a 7→ La , b 7→ Rb ,
where La is the operator of left multiplication by a and Rb is the operator of
right multiplication by b.
In general it is rather hard to characterize the invertible bimodules. The
following theorem is one of the main results of Morita:

Theorem 3.1. An A − B bimodule X is invertible if and only if X is finite

and projective both as a left A-module and as a right B-module and the natural
maps
A → EndB (X), B → EndA (X),
are algebra isomorphisms.

Example. Any unital algebra A is Morita equivalent to the algebra

Mn (A) of n × n matrices over A. The (A, Mn (A)) equivalence bimodule is
X = An with obvious left A-action and right Mn (A)-action. This example
can be generalized as follows.
Example. Let P be a finite projective left A-module and let

B = EndA (P ).

30
Then the algebras A and B are Morita equivalent. The equivalence A − B
bimodule is given by X = P with obvious A − B bimodule structure. As a
special case, we obtain the following geometric example.
Example Let X be a compact Hausdorff space and E a complex vector
bundle on X. Then the algebras A = C(X) of continuous functions on X
and B = Γ(End(E)) of global sections of the endomorphisms bundle of E
are Morita equivalent. In fact, in view of Swan’s theorem this is a special
case of the last example with P = Γ(E) the global sections of E. There
are analogous results for real as well as quaternionic vector bundles. If X
happens to be a smooth manifold we can let A to be the algebra of smooth
functions on X and B be the algebra of smooth sections of End(E).
Given a category C we can consider the category F un(C) whose objects
are functors from C → C and whose morphisms are natural transformations
between functors. The center of a category C is by definition the set of
natural transformations from the identity functor to itself:

Z(C) := HomF un(C) (Id, Id).

Equivalent categories obviously have isomorphic centers.

Let Z(A) = {a ∈ A; ab = ba for all b ∈ A} denote the center of an algebra
A. It is easily seen that for C = MA the natural map

Z(A) → Z(C), a 7→ Ra ,

where Ra (m) = ma for any module M and any m ∈ M, is one to one and
onto. It follows that Morita equivalent algebras have isomorphic centers:
M.E.
A ∼ B ⇒ Z(A) ≃ Z(B).

In particular two commutative algebras are Morita equivalent if and only if

they are isomorphic. We say that commutativity is not a Morita invariant
property.

Exercise: Let A be a unital k-algebra. Show that there is a 1-1 corre-

spondence between space of traces on A and Mn (A). Extend this fact to
arbitrary Morita equivalent algebras.
We will see in Section 4 that Morita equivalent algebras have isomorphic
Hochschild and cyclic (co)homology groups. They have isomorphic algebraic
K-theory as well.

31
3.3.2 Strong Morita equivalence
Extending the Morita theory to non-unital algebras and to topological alge-
bras needs more work and is not an easy task. For (not necessarily unital)
C ∗ -algebras we have Rieffel’s notion of strong Morita equivalence that we
recall below.
For C ∗ -algebras one is mostly interested in their ∗-representations on a
Hilbert space. Thus one must consider equivalence A − B bimodules X such
that if H is a Hilbert space and a right A-module, then H ⊗A X is a Hilbert
space as well. This leads naturally to the concepts of Hilbert module and
Hilbert bimodule that we recall below.
Let B be a not necessarily unital C ∗ -algebra. A right Hilbert module over
B is a right B-module X endowed with a B-valued inner product such that
X is complete with respect to its natural norm. More precisely, we have a
sesquilinear map
X × X −→ B, (x, y) 7→< x, y >,
such that for all x, y in X and b in B we have
< x, y >=< y, x >∗ , < x, yb >=< x, y > b, and < x, x >> 0 for x 6= 0.
It can be shown that kxk := k < x, x > k1/2 is a norm on X. We assume X
is complete with respect to this norm.
Of course, for B = C, a Hilbert B-module is just a Hilbert space. A
very simple geometric example to keep in mind is the following. Let M be
a compact Hausdorff space and let E be a complex vector bundle on M
endowed with a Hermitian inner product. One defines a Hilbert module
structure on the space X = Γ(E) of continuous sections of E by
< s, t > (m) =< s(m), t(m) >m
for continuous sections s and t and m ∈ M.
A morphism of Hilbert B-modules X and Y is a bounded B-module
map X → Y . Every bounded operator on a Hilbert space has an adjoint.
This is not the case for Hilbert modules. (This is simply because, even
purely algebraically, a submodule of a module need not have a complementary
submodule). A bounded B-linear map T : X → X is called adjointable if
there is a bounded B-linear map T ∗ : X → X such that for all x and y in X
we have
< T x, y >=< x, T ∗ y > .

32
Let LB (X) denote the algebra of bounded adjointable B-module maps X →
X. It is a C ∗ -algebra.
Let A and B be C ∗ -algebras. A Hilbert A − B bimodule consists of a right
Hilbert B-module X and a C ∗ map

A −→ LB (X).

C ∗ -algebras A and B are called strongly Morita equivalent if there is a

Hilbert A − B bimodule X and a Hilbert B − A bimodule Y such that we
have isomorphisms of bimodules

X ⊗B Y ≃ A, Y ⊗A X ≃ B.

(The tensor products are completions of algebraic tensor products with re-
spect to thier natural pre-Hilbert module structures.)
Two unital C ∗ -algebras are strongly Morita equivalent if and only if they
are Morita equivalent as algebras. Any C ∗ -algebra A is Morita equivalent
to its stabilization A ⊗ K, where ⊗ is the C ∗ tensor product and K is the
algebra of compact operators on a Hilbert space. Strongly Morita equivalent
algebras have naturally isomorphic topological K-theory. (cf. [37] for more
details, and a proof of these statements or references to original sources.)

3.4 Noncommutative quotients

¿From a purely set theoretic point of view, all one needs to form a quotient
space X/ ∼ is an equivalence relation ∼ on a set X. The equivalence relation
however is usually obtained from a much richer structure by forgetting part
of this structure. For example, ∼ may arise from an action of a group G on
X where x ∼ y if and only if gx = y for some g in G (orbit equivalence).
Note that there may be, in general, many g with this property. That is
x may be identifiable with y in more than one way. Of course when we
form the equivalence relation this extra information is lost. The key idea in
dealing with bad quotients in Connes’ theory is to keep track of this extra
information!
We call, rather vaguely, this extra structure the quotient data. Now
Connes’s dictum in forming noncommutative quotients can be summarized
as follows:

quotient data groupoid groupoid algebra,

33
where the noncommutative quotient is defined to be the groupoid algebra
itself.
Why is this a reasonable approach? The answer is that first of all, by a
theorem of M. Rieffel (see below) when the classical quotient, defined by a
group action, is a reasonable space, the algebra of continuous functions on
the classical quotient is strongly Morita equivalent to the groupoid algebra.
Now it is known that Morita equivalent algebras have isomorphic K-theory,
Hochschild and cyclic (co)homology groups. Thus the topological invariants
defined via noncommutative geometry are the same for the two constructions
and no information is lost.
For bad quotients there is no reasonable space but we think of the non-
commutative algebra defined as a groupoid algebra as representing a non-
commutative quotient space. Thanks to noncommutative geometry, tools
like K-theory, K-homology, cyclic cohomology and the local index formula,
etc., can be applied to great advantage in the study of these noncommutative
spaces.

Example 1.
a) We start with a simple example from [15]. Let X = {a, b} be a set with
two elements and define an equivalence relation on X that identifies a and
b, a ∼ b:
a b
•!•
The corresponding groupoid here is the groupoid of pairs on the set X. By
Example 1 in Section 3.3 its groupoid algebra is the algebra of 2 by 2 matrices
M2 (C). The identification is given by
 
faa fab
faa (a, a) + fab (a, b) + fba (b, a) + fbb (b, b) 7→ .
fba fbb

The algebra of functions on the classical quotient, on the other hand, is

given by
{f : X → C; f (a) = f (b)} ≃ C.
Thus the classical quotient and the noncommutative quotient are Morita
equivalent.

noncommutative quotient a b classical quotient

M2 (C) ←−−−−−−−−−−−−−− • ! • −−−−−−−−−→ C

34
b) The above example can be generalized. For example let X be a finite set
with n elements with the equivalence relation x ∼ y for all x, y in X. The
corresponding groupoid G is the groupoid of pairs and its groupoid algebra,
representing the noncommutative quotient, is
CG ≃ Mn (C).
The algebra of functions on the classical quotient is given by
{f : X → C; f (a) = f (b) for all a, b in X} ≃ C.
Again the classical quotient is obviously Morita equivalent to the noncom-
mutative quotient.

c) Let G be a group (not necessarily finite) acting on a finite set X. The

algebra of functions on the classical quotient is
M
C(X/G) = {f : X → C; f (x) = f (gx) for all g ∈ G, x ∈ X} ≃ C,
O

where O denotes the set of orbits of X under the action of G.

The noncommutative quotient, on the other hand, is defined to be the
groupoid algebra of the transformation groupoid G = X ⋊ G. Note that
as we saw before this algebra is isomorphic to the crossed product algebra
C(X) ⋊ G. From Section 3.3 we have,
M
CG ≃ C(X) ⋊ G ≃ Gi ⊗ Mni (C),
i∈O

where Gi is the isotropy group of the i-th orbit, and ni is the size of the i-th
orbit. Comparing the classical quotient with the noncommutative quotient
we see that:
i) If the action of G is free then Gi = {1} for all orbits i and therefore the
two algebras are Morita equivalent:
M M.E. M
C(X/G) ≃ C ∼ Mni (C) ≃ CG.
O i∈O

ii) The information about the isotropy groups is not lost in the noncommu-
tative quotient construction, while the classical quotient totally neglects the

35
isotropy groups.

d) Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff space and consider the equivalence

relation x ∼ y for all x and y in X. The corresponding groupoid is again
the groupoid of pairs. It is a locally compact topological groupoid and its
groupoid C ∗ -algebra as we saw in Section 3.3 is the algebra of compact op-
erators K(L2 (X, µ)). This algebra is obviously strongly Morita equivalent to
the classical quotient algebra C.

Example 2. Let θ ∈ R be a fixed real number. Consider the action of the

group of integers G = Z on the unit circle T = {z ∈ C; |z| = 1} via rotation
by θ:
(n, z) 7→ e2πinθ z.
For θ = pq a rational number, the quotient space T/Z is a circle and the
classical quotient algebra

“C(T/Z)” := {f ∈ C(T); f (gz) = f (z), for all g, z} ≃ C(T).

The noncommutative quotient Aθ = C(T) ⋊r Z, for any θ, is the unital

C ∗ -algebra generated by two unitaries U and V subject to the relation

V U = e2πiθ UV.

It can be shown that when θ is a rational number Aθ is isomorphic to the space

of continuous sections of the endomorphism bundle End(E) of a complex
vector bundle E over the 2-torus T2 . Thus for θ rational, Aθ is Morita
equivalent to C(T2 ):
M.E.
C(T) ⋊r Z ∼ C(T2 ).
If θ is an irrational number then each orbit is dense in T and the quotient
space T/Z has only two open set. It is an uncountable set with a trivial
topology. In particular it is not Hausdorff. Obviously, a continuous function
on the circle which is constant on each orbit is necessarily constant since
orbits are dense. Therefore

“C(T/Z)” ≃ C.

The noncommutative quotient Aθ in this case is a simple C ∗ -algebra and is

not Morita equivalent to C(T2 ).

36
 Let G be a discrete group acting by homeomorphisms on a locally compact
Hausdorff space X. Recall that the action is called free if for all g 6= e,
we have gx 6= x for all x ∈ G. The action is called proper if the map
G × X → X, (g, x) 7→ gx is a proper map in the sense that the inverse image
of a compact set is compact. One shows that when the action is free and
proper the orbit space X/G of a locally compact and Hausdorff space is again
a locally compact and Hausdorff space. Similarly, if X is a smooth manifold
and the action is free and proper then there exists a unique smooth structure
on X/G such that the quotient map X → X/G is smooth.
The following result of M. Rieffel [57] clarifies the relation between the
classical quotients and noncommutative quotients for group actions:
Theorem 3.2. Assume G acts freely and properly on a locally compact Haus-
dorff space X. Then we have a strong Morita equivalence between the C ∗ -
algebras C0 (X/G) and C0 (X) ⋊r G.

4 Cyclic cohomology
Cyclic cohomology was discovered by Alain Connes in 1981 [11]. One of
Connes’ main motivations came from index theory on foliated spaces. The
K-theoretic index of a transversally elliptic operator on a foliated manifold
is an element of the K-theory group of a noncommutative algebra, called
the foliation algebra of the given foliated manifold. Connes realized that to
identify this class it would be desirable to have a noncommutative analogue
of the Chern character with values in a, as yet unknown, cohomology theory
for noncommutative algebras that would play the role of de Rham homology
of smooth manifolds.
Now to define a noncommutative de Rham theory for noncommutative
algebras is a highly nontrivial matter. This is in sharp contrast with the
situation in K-theory where extending the topological K-theory to Banach
algebras is essentially a routine matter. Note that the usual algebraic formu-
lation of de Rham theory starts with the module of Kaehler differentials and
its exterior algebra which does not make sense for noncommutative algebras.
Instead the answer was found by Connes by analyzing the algebraic struc-
tures hidden in traces of products of commutators. These expressions are
directly defined in terms of an elliptic operator and its parametix and were
shown, via an index formula, to give the index of the operator when paired
with a K-theory class.

37
 Let us read what Connes wrote in the Oberwolfach conference notebook
after his talk, summarizing his discovery and how he arrived at it [11]:

“The transverse elliptic theory for foliations requires as a preliminary step

a purely algebraic work, of computing for a noncommutative algebra A the
cohomology of the following complex: n-cochains are multilinear functions
ϕ(f 0 , · · · , f n ) of f 0 , · · · , f n ∈ A where

ϕ(f 1 , · · · , f 0 ) = (−1)n ϕ(f 0 , · · · , f n )

and the boundary is

bϕ(f 0 , · · · , f n+1 ) = ϕ(f 0 f 1 , · · · , f n+1) − ϕ(f 0 , f 1 f 2 , · · · , f n+1 ) + · · ·

+(−1)n+1 ϕ(f n+1f 0 , · · · , f n ).

The basic class associated to a transversally elliptic operator, for A = the

algebra of the foliation is given by:

ϕ(f 0 , · · · , f n ) = T race(εF [F, f 0][F, f 1 ] · · · [F, f n ]), fi ∈ A

where    
0 Q 1 0
F = , ε= ,
P 0 0 −1
and Q is a parametrix of P . An operation

S : H n (A) → H n+2 (A)

is constructed as well as a pairing

K(A) × H(A) → C

where K(A) is the algebraic K-theory of A. It gives the index of the operator
from its associated class ϕ. Moreover < e, ϕ >=< e, Sϕ > so that the
important group to determine is the inductive limit Hg = LimH n (A) for
→
the map S. Using the tools of homological algebra the groups H n (A, A∗)
of Hochschild cohomology with coefficients in the bimodule A∗ are easier to
determine and the solution of the problem is obtained in two steps,
1) the construction of a map

B : H n (A, A∗) → H n−1 (A)

38
and the proof of a long exact sequence
B S I
· · · → H n (A, A∗) → H n−1(A) → H n+1(A) → H n+1 (A, A∗) → · · ·

where I is the obvious map from the cohomology of the above complex to the
Hochschild cohomology.
2) The construction of a spectral sequence with E2 term given by the coho-
mology of the degree −1 differential I ◦B on the Hochschild groups H n (A, A∗)
and which converges strongly to a graded group associated to the inductive
limit.
This purely algebraic theory is then used. For A = C ∞ (V ) one gets the
de Rham homology of currents, and for the pseudo torus, i.e. the algebra of
the Kronecker foliation, one finds that the Hochschild cohomology depends on
the Diophantine nature of the rotation number while the above theory gives
Hg0 of dimension 1, Hg1 of dimension 2, and Hg0 of dimension 1 as expected
but from some remarkable cancellations”.

In a different direction, cyclic homology also appeared in the 1983 work

of Tsygan [60] and was used also, independently, by Loday and Quillen [54].
The Loday-Quillen-Tsygan theorem states that the cyclic homology of an
algebra A is the primitive part (in the sense of Hopf algebras) of the Lie
algebra homology of the Lie algebra gl(A) of stable matrices. Equivalently,
the Lie algebra homology of gl(A) is isomorphic with the exterior algebra
over the cyclic homology of A with dimension shifted by 1:

H•Lie (gl(A)) ≃ ∧(HC• (A)[−1]).

We won’t pursue this connection in these notes.

In section 4.1 we recall basic notions of Hochschild (co)homology theory
and give several computations. Theorems of Connes [13] (resp. Hochschild-
Kostant-Rosenberg [44]) on the Hochschild cohomology of the algebra of
smooth functions on a manifold (resp. algebra of regular functions on a
smooth affine variety) are among the most important results of this theory.
In Section 4.2 we define cyclic cohomology via Connes’ cyclic complex.
The easiest approach, perhaps, to introduce the map B is to introduce first
a bicomplex called cyclic bicomplex. This leads to a new definition of cyclic
(co)homology, a definition of the operator B, and a proof of the long exact
sequence of Connes, relating Hochschild, and cyclic cohomology groups. A
third definition of cyclic cohomology is via Connes’s (b, B)-bicomplex. The

39
equivalence of these three definitions is established by explicit maps. Finally
we recall Connes’ computation of the cyclic (co)homology of the algebra of
smooth functions on a manifold, and Burghelea’s result on the cyclic homol-
ogy of group rings.

4.1 Hochschild (co)homology

Hochschild cohomology of associative algebras was defined by G. Hochschild
through an explicit complex in [43]. This complex is a generalization of the
standard complex for group cohomology. One of the original motivations
was to give a cohomological criterion for separability of algebras as well as a
classification of (simple types) of algebra extensions in terms of second coho-
mology. Once it was realized, by Cartan and Eilenberg [8], that Hochschild
cohomology is an example of their newly discovered theory of derived func-
tors, tools of homological algebra like resolutions became available.
The Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg theorem [44] and its smooth version
by Connes[13] identifies the Hochschild homology of the algebra of regular
functions on a smooth affine variety or smooth functions on a manifold with
differential forms and is among the most important results of this theory.
Because of this result one usually thinks of the Hochschild homology of an
algebra A with coefficients in A as a noncommutative analogue of differential
forms on A.
As we shall see later in this section Hochschild (co)homology is related
to cyclic (co)homology through Connes’ long exact sequence. For this reason
computing the Hochschild (co)homology is often the first step in computing
the cyclic (co)homology of a given algebra.
Let A be an algebra and let M be an A-bimodule. Thus M is a left
and right A-module and the two actions are compatible in the sense that
a(mb) = (am)b, for all a, b in A and m in M. The Hochschild cochain
complex of A with coefficients in M, denoted (C • (A, M), δ), is defined as

C 0 (A, M) = M, C n (A, M) = Hom(A⊗n , M), n ≥ 1,

(δm)(a) = ma − am,
n
X
(δf )(a1 , · · · , an+1 ) = a1 f (a2 , · · · , an+1 ) + (−1)i+1 f (a1 , · · · , ai ai+1 , · · · , an+1 )
i=1
n+1
+(−1) f (a1 , · · · , an )an+1 ,

40
where m ∈ M = C 0 (A, M), and f ∈ C n (A, M), n ≥ 1.
One checks that
δ 2 = 0.
The cohomology of the complex (C • (A, M), δ) is by definition the Hochschild
cohomology of A with coefficients in M and will be denoted by H • (A, M).
Among all bimodules M over an algebra A, the following two bimodules
play an important role:

1) M=A, with bimodule structure a(b)c = abc, for all a, b, c in A. The

Hochschild complex C • (A, A) is also known as the deformation complex , or
Gerstenhaber complex of A. It plays an important role in deformation theory
of associative algebras pioneered by Gerstenhaber [36]. For example it is
easy to see that H 2 (A, A) is the space of infinitesimal deformations of A and
H 3 (A, A) is the space of obstructions for deformations of A.

2) M = A∗ = Hom(A, k) with bimodule structure defined by

(af b)(c) = f (bca),
for all a, b, c in A, and f in A∗ . This bimodule is relevant to cyclic cohomol-
ogy. Indeed as we shall see the Hochschild groups H • (A, A∗ ) and the cyclic
cohomology groups HC • (A) enter into a long exact sequence (Connes’s long
sequence). Using the identification
Hom(A⊗n , A∗ ) ≃ Hom(A⊗(n+1) , k), f 7→ ϕ,
ϕ(a0 , a1 , · · · , an ) = f (a1 , · · · , an )(a0 ),
the Hochschild differential δ is transformed into the differential b given by
n
X
bϕ(a0 , · · · , an+1 ) = (−1)i ϕ(a0 , · · · ai ai+1 , · · · , an+1 )
i=0
+(−1)n+1 ϕ(an+1 a0 , a1 , · · · , an ).
Thus for n = 0, 1, 2 we have the following formulas for b:
bϕ(a0 , a1 ) = ϕ(a0 a1 ) − ϕ(a1 a0 ),
bϕ(a0 , a1 , a2 ) = ϕ(a0 a1 , a2 ) − ϕ(a0 , a1 a2 ) + ϕ(a2 a0 , a1 ),
bϕ(a0 , a1 , a2 , a3 ) = ϕ(a0 a1 , a2 , a3 ) − ϕ(a0 , a1 a2 , a3 )
+ϕ(a0 , a1 , a2 a3 ) − ϕ(a3 a0 , a1 , a2 ).

41
We give a few examples of Hochschild cohomology in low dimensions.

Examples
1. n = 0. It is clear that
H 0 (A, M) = {m ∈ M; ma = am for all a ∈ A}.
In particular for M = A∗ ,
H 0 (A, A∗ ) = {f : A → k; f (ab) = f (ba) for all a, b ∈ A},
is the space of traces on A.

d
Exercise: For A = k[x, dx ], the algebra of differential operators with polyno-
mial coefficients, show that H 0 (A, A∗ ) = 0.

2. n = 1. A Hochschild 1-cocycle f ∈ C 1 (A, M) is simply a derivation, i.e. a

linear map f : A → M such that
f (ab) = af (b) + f (a)b,
for all a, b in A. A cocycle is a coboundary if and only if the corresponding
derivation is inner, that is there exists m in M such that f (a) = ma − am
for all a in A. Therefore
derivations
H 1 (A, M) =
inner derivations
Sometimes this is called the space of outer derivations of A to M.

Exercise: 1) Show that any derivation on the algebra C(X) of continuous

functions on a compact Hausdorff space X is zero. (Hint: If f = g 2 and
g(x) = 0 then f ′ (x) = 0.)
2) Show that any derivation on the matrix algebra Mn (k) is inner. (This was
proved by Dirac in [32] where derivations are called quantum differentials.
d
3) Show that any derivation on the Weyl algebra A = k[x, dx ] is inner as well.

3. n = 2. We show, following Hochschild [43], that H 2 (A, M) classifies abelian

extensions of A by M. Let A be a unital algebra over a field k. By definition,
an abelian extension is an exact sequence of algebras
0 −→ M −→ B −→ A −→ 0,

42
such that B is unital, M has trivial multiplication (M 2 = 0), and the induced
A-bimodule structure on M coincides with the original bimodule structure.
Let E(A, M) denote the set of isomorphism classes of such extensions. We
define a natural bijection

E(A, M) ≃ H 2 (A, M)

as follows. Given an extension as above, let s : A → B be a linear splitting

for the projection B → A, and let f : A ⊗ A → M be its curvature defined
by,
f (a, b) = s(ab) − s(a)s(b),
for all a, b in A. One can easily check that f is a Hochschild 2-cocycle and its
class is independent of the choice of splitting s. In the other direction, given
a 2-cochain f : A ⊗ A → M, we try to define a multiplication on B = A ⊕ M
via
(a, m)(a′ , m′ ) = (aa′ , am′ + ma′ + f (a, a′ )).
It can be checked that this defines an associative multiplication if and only
if f is a 2-cocycle. The extension associated to a 2-cocycle f is the extension

0 −→ M −→ A ⊕ M −→ A −→ 0.

It can be checked that these two maps are bijective and inverse to each other.
We show that Hochschild cohomology is a derived functor. Let Aop denote
the opposite algebra of A, where Aop = A and the new multiplication is
defined by a.b := ba. There is a one to one correspondence between A-
bimodules and left A ⊗ Aop -modules defined by

(a ⊗ bop )m = amb.

Define a functor from the category of left A ⊗ Aop modules to k-modules by

M 7→ HomA⊗Aop (A, M) = {m ∈ M; ma = am for all a ∈ A} = H 0 (A, M).

To show that Hochschild cohomology is the derived functor of the functor

HomA⊗Aop (A, −), we introduce the bar resolution of A. It is defined by
b′ b′
0 ←− A ←− B1 (A) ←− B2 (A) · · · ,

43
where Bn (A) = A ⊗ Aop ⊗ A⊗n is the free left A ⊗ Aop module generated by
A⊗n . The differential b′ is defined by

b′ (a ⊗ b ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = aa1 ⊗ b ⊗ a2 · · · ⊗ an
n−1
X
+ (−1)i (a ⊗ b ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ai ai+1 · · · ⊗ an )
i=1
+(−1)n (a ⊗ an b ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an−1 ).

Define the operators s : Bn (A) → Bn+1 (A), n ≥ 0, by

s(a ⊗ b ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = 1 ⊗ b ⊗ a ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an .

One checks that

b′ s + sb′ = id
which shows that (B• (A), b′ ) is acyclic. Thus (B• (A), b′ ) is a projective res-
olution of A as an A-bimodule. Now, for any A-bimodule M we have

HomA⊗Aop (B• (A), M) ≃ (C • (A, M), δ),

which shows that Hochschild cohomology is a derived functor.

One can therefore use resolutions to compute Hochschild cohomology
groups. Here are a few exercises
1. Let
A = T (V ) = k ⊕ V ⊕ V ⊗2 ⊕ · · · ,
be the tensor algebra of a vector space V . Show that
δ δ
0 ←− T (V ) ←− T (V ) ⊗ T (V ) ←− T (V ) ⊗ V ⊗ T (V ) ←− 0,

δ(x ⊗ y) = xy, δ(x ⊗ v ⊗ y) = xv ⊗ y − x ⊗ vy,

is a free resolution of T (V ). Conclude that A has Hochschild cohomological
dimension 1 in the sense that H n (A, M) = 0 for all M and all n ≥ 2. Com-
pute H 0 and H 1 [53].

2. Let A = k[x1 , · · · , xn ] be the polynomial algebra in n variables over a

field k of characteristic zero. Let V be an n dimensional vector space over k.
Define a resolution of the form

0 ← A ← A ⊗ A ← A ⊗ V ⊗ A ← · · · A ⊗ ∧i V ⊗ A · · · ← A ⊗ ∧n V ⊗ A ← 0

44
by tensoring resolutions in 1) above for one dimensional vector spaces.
Conclude that for any symmetric A-bimodule M,

H i (A, M) ≃ M ⊗ ∧i V, i = 0, 1, · · · .
Before proceeding further let us recall the definition of the Hochschild
homology of an algebra with coefficients in a bimodule M. The Hochschild
complex of A with coefficients in M, (C• (A, M), δ), is defined by
C0 (A, M) = M, and Cn (A, M) = M ⊗ A⊗n , n = 1, 2, · · ·

and the Hochschild boundary δ : Cn (A, M) −→ Cn−1 (A, M) is defined by

n−1
X
δ(m ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · an ) = ma1 ⊗ a1 · · · an + (−1)i m ⊗ a1 ⊗ ai ai+1 · · · an
i=1
+(−1)n an m ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · an .

The Hochschild homology of A with coefficients in M is, by definition, the ho-

mology of the complex (C• (A, M), δ). We denote this homology by H• (A, M).
It is clear that
H0 (A, M) = M/[A, M],
where [A, M] is the subspace of M spanned by commutators am − ma for a
in A and m in M.
The following facts are easily established:
1. Hochschild homology H• (A, M) is the derived functor of the functor
A ⊗ Aop − Mod −→ k − Mod, M 7→ A ⊗A⊗Aop M,
i.e.
op
Hn (A, M) = T ornA⊗A (A, M).
For the proof one uses the bar resolution as before.

2. (Duality) Let M ∗ = Hom(M, k). It is an A-bimodule via (af b)(m) =

f (bma). One checks that the natural isomorphism
Hom(A⊗n , M ∗ ) ≃ Hom(M ⊗ A⊗n , k), n = 0, 1, · · ·
is compatible with differentials. Thus if k is field of characteristic zero, we
have
H • (A, M ∗ ) ≃ (H• (A, M))∗ .

45
 ¿From now on we denote by HH n (A) the Hochschild group H n (A, A∗ )
and by HHn (A) the Hochschild group Hn (A, A).
For applications of Hochschild and cyclic (co)homology to noncommu-
tative geometry, it is crucial to consider topological algebras, topological
bimodules and continuous chains and cochains on them. For example while
the algebraic Hochschild groups of the algebra of smooth functions on a
smooth manifold are not known, its topological Hochschild (co)homology is
computed by Connes as we recall below. We will give only a brief outline of
the definitions and refer the reader to [13, 15] for more details.
Let A be a locally convex topological algebra and M be a locally con-
vex topological A-bimodule. Thus A is a locally convex topological vector
space and the multiplication map A × A → A is continuous. Similarly M
is a locally convex topological vector space such that both module maps
A × M → M and M × A → M are continuous. In the definition of continu-
ˆ ⊗nˆ
ous Hochschild homology one uses the projective tensor product M ⊗A of
locally convex spaces. The algebraic Hochschild boundary, being continuous,
naturally extends to topological completions.
For cohomology one should use jointly continuous multilinear maps

ϕ : A × · · · × A → M.

With these provisions, the rest of the algebraic formalism remains the same
and carries over to the topological set up. In using projective resolutions,
one should use only those topological resolutions that admit a continuous
linear splitting. This gaurantees that the comparison theorem for projective
resolutions remain true in the continuous setting.
We give a few examples of Hochschild (co)homology computations. In
particular we shall see that group homology and Lie algebra homology are
instances of Hochschild homology. We start by recalling the classical results
of Connes [13] and Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg [44] on the Hochschild ho-
mology of smooth commutative algebras.

Example (Commutative Algebras)

Let A be a commutative unital algebra over a ring k. We recall the definition
of the algebraic de Rham complex of A. The module of 1-forms over A,
denoted by Ω1 A, is defined to be a left A-module Ω1 A with a universal
derivation
d : A −→ Ω1 A.

46
This means that any other derivation δ : A → M into a left A-module M,
uniquely factorizes through d. One usually defines Ω1 A = I/I 2 where I is
the kernel of the multiplication map A ⊗ A → A. Note that since A is
commutative this map is an algebra homomorphism. d is defined by

d(a) = a ⊗ 1 − 1 ⊗ a mod(I 2 ).

One defines the space of n-forms on A as the n-th exterior power of the
A-module Ω1 A:
Ωn A := ∧nA Ω1 A.
There is a unique extension of d to a graded derivation

d : Ω• A −→ Ω•+1 A.

It satisfies the relation d2 = 0. The algebraic de Rham cohomology of A is

defined to be the cohomology of the complex (Ω• A, d).
Let M be a symmetric A-bimodule. We compare the complex (M ⊗A
Ω• A, 0) with the Hochschild complex of A with coefficients in M. Consider
the antisymmetrization map

εn : M ⊗A Ωn A −→ M ⊗ A⊗n , n = 0, 1, 2, · · · ,
X
εn (m ⊗ da1 ∧ · · · ∧ dan ) = sgn(σ)m ⊗ aσ(1) ⊗ · · · ⊗ aσ(n) ,
σ∈Sn

where Sn denotes the symmetric group on n letters. We also have a map

µn : M ⊗ A⊗n −→ M ⊗A Ωn A, n = 0, 1, · · ·

µn (m ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · an ) = m ⊗ da1 ∧ · · · ∧ dan .
One checks that both maps are morphisms of complexes, i.e.

δ ◦ εn = 0, µn ◦ δ = 0.

Moreover, one has

µn ◦ εn = n! Idn .
It follows that if k is a field of characteristic zero then the antisymmetrization
map
εn : M ⊗A Ωn A −→ Hn (A, M),

47
is an inclusion. For M = A we obtain a natural inclusion
Ωn A −→ HHn (A).
The celebrated Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg theorem [44] states that if
A is the algebra of regular functions on an smooth affine variety the above
map is an isomorphism.
Let M be a smooth closed manifold and let A = C ∞ (M) be the algebra
of smooth complex valued functions on M. It is a locally convex (in fact,
Frechet) topological algebra. Fixing a finite atlas on M, one defines a family
of seminorms
pn (f ) = sup{|∂ I (f )|; |I| ≤ n},
where the supremum is over all coordinate charts. It is easily seen that the
induced topology is independent of the choice of atlas. In [13], using an
explicit resolution, Connes shows that the canonical map
HHncont(A) → Ωn M, f0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ fn 7→ f0 df1 · · · dfn ,
is an isomorphism. In fact the original, equivalent, formulation of Connes in
[13] is for continuous Hochschild cohomology HH n (A) which is shown to be
isomorphic to the continuous dual of Ωn M (space of n-dimensional de Rham
currents).

Example (Group Algebras)

It is clear from the original definitions that group (co)homology is an example
of Hochschild (co)homology. Let G be a group and let M be a left G-module
over the ground ring k. Recall that the standard complex for computing
group cohomology [53] is the complex
δ δ δ
M −→ C 1 (G, M) −→ C 2 (G, M) −→ · · · ,
where
C n (G, M) = {f : Gn −→ M}.
The differential δ is defined by
(δm)(g) = gm − m,
n
X
δf (g1 , · · · , gn+1) = g1 f (g2 , · · · , gn+1 ) + (−1)i f (g1 , · · · gi gi+1 , · · · gn+1 )
i=1
n+1
+(−1) f (g1 , g2 , · · · , gn ).

48
 Let A = kG denote the group algebra of the group G over k. Then M is
a kG-bimodule via the two actions

g.m = g(m), m.g = m,

for all g in G and m in M. It is clear that for all n,

C n (kG, M) ≃ C n (G, M),

and the two differentials are the same. It follows that the cohomology of G
with coefficients in M coincides with the Hochschild cohomology of kG with
coefficients in M.

Example (Enveloping Algebras).

We show that Lie algebra (co)homology is an example of Hochschild (co)homology.
Let g be a Lie algebra and M be a g-module. This simply means that we
have a Lie algebra morphism

g −→ Endk (M).

The Lie algebra homology of g with coefficients in M is the homology of the

Chevalley-Eilenberg complex defined by

M ←− M ⊗ ∧1 g ←− M ⊗ ∧2 g ←− M · · · ,

where the differential is defined by

δ(m ⊗ X) = X(m),

X
δ(m ⊗ X1 ∧ X2 ∧ · · · ∧ Xn ) = (−1)i+j m ⊗ [Xi , Xj ] ∧ X1 · · · ∧ X̂i · · · X̂j · · · ∧ Xn
i<j
X
+ (−1)i Xi (m) ⊗ X1 ∧ · · · X̂i ∧ · · · ∧ Xn .
i

One checks that δ 2 = 0.

Let U(g) denote the enveloping algebra of g. Given a g module M we
define a U(g)-bimodule M ′ = M with left and right U(g)-actions defined by

X · m = X(m), m · X = 0.

49
 Define a map

εn : CnLie (g, M) −→ Cn (U(g), M ′ ),

X
εn (m ⊗ X1 ∧ · · · ∧ Xn ) = sgn(σ)m ⊗ Xσ(1) ⊗ · · · ⊗ Xσ(n) .
σ∈Sn

One checks that ε is a chain map (prove this!). We claim that it is a quasi-
isomorphism, i.e. it induces isomorphism on homology. To prove this, we
define a filtration on (C• (U(g), M), δ) using the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt fil-
tration on U(g). The associated E 1 term is the de Rham complex of the
symmetric algebra S(g). The induced map is the antisymmetrization map

εn : M ⊗ ∧n g → M ⊗ S(g)⊗n .

By Hochschild-Kostant-Rosenberg’s theorem, this map is a quasi-isomorphism

hence the original map is a quasi-isomorphism.

Example (Morita Invariance of Hochschild (Co)Homology)

Let A and B be unital Morita equivalent k-algebras. Let X be an equivalence
A − B bimodule and Y its inverse bimodule. Let M be an A − A bimodule
and N = Y ⊗A M ⊗A X the corresponding B-bimodule. Morita invariance
of Hochschild homology states that there is a natural isomorphism

Hn (A, M) ≃ Hn (B, N),

for all n ≥ 0 [53]. We sketch a proof of this result for the special case where
B = Mk (A) is the algebra of k by k matrices over A.
Let M be an A-bimodule, and let Mk (M) be the space of k by k matrices
with coefficients in M. It is a bimodule over Mk (A). The generalized trace
map is defined by

T r : Cn (Mk (A), Mk (M)) −→ Cn (A, M),

T r(α0 ⊗ m0 ⊗ α1 ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ αn ⊗ an ) =
tr(α0 ⊗ α1 ⊗ · · · αn )m0 ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · an ,

where αi ∈ Mk (k), ai ∈ A, m0 ∈ M, and tr : Mk (k) −→ k is the standard

trace of matrices.

50
Exercise:
1. Show that T r is a chain map.
2. Let i : A → Mk (A) be the map that sends a in A to the matrix with
only one non-zero component in the upper left corner equal to a. There is a
similar map M → Mk (M). Define a map

i∗ : Cn (A, M) −→ Cn (Mk (A), Mk (M)),

i∗ (m ⊗ a1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = i(m) ⊗ i(a1 ) ⊗ · · · ⊗ i(an ).

Show that
T r ◦ i∗ = id.
It is however not true that i∗ ◦ T r = id. There is instead a homotopy
between i∗ ◦T r and id. The homotopy is given in [53] and we won’t reproduce
it here.
As a special case of the Morita invariance theorem, we have an isomor-
phism of Hochschild homology groups

HHn (A) = HHn (Mk (A)),

for all n and k.

We need to know, for example when defining the noncommutative Chern
character map, that inner automorphisms act by identity on Hochschild ho-
mology and inner derivations act by zero. Let A be an algebra, let u ∈ A be
an invertible element and let a ∈ A be any element. They induce the chain
maps

Θ : Cn (A) → Cn (A) a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an 7→ ua0 u−1 ⊗ · · · ⊗ uan u−1 ,

n
X
La : Cn (A) → Cn (A) a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an 7→ a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ [a, ai ] ⊗ · · · ⊗ an .
i=0

Lemma 4.1. Θ induces the identity map on Hochschild homology and La

induces the zero map.

Proof. The maps [53], hi : A⊗n+1 → A⊗n+2 , i = 0, · · · , n

hi (a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = (a0 u−1 ⊗ ua1 u−1 , · · · , u ⊗ ai+1 · · · ⊗ an )

51
define a homotopy
n
X
h= (−1)i hi
i=0

betweem id and Θ.
For the second part one checks again that the maps hi : A⊗n+1 →
⊗n+2
A , i = 0, · · · , n,

hi (a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = (a0 ⊗ · · · ai ⊗ a · · · ⊗ an ),

define a homotopy between La and 0 [53].

4.2 Cyclic (co)homology

4.2.1 Connes’ cyclic complex
Cyclic cohomology was first defined by Connes [11, 13] through a remarkable
subcomplex of the Hochschild complex called the cyclic complex. Let k be a
field of characteristic zero and let (C • (A), b) denote the Hochschild complex
of a k-algebra A with coefficients in the A-bimodule A∗ . We have

C n (A) = Hom(A⊗(n+1) , k), n = 0, 1, · · · ,

n
X
(bf )(a0 , · · · , an+1 ) = (−1)i f (a0 , · · · , ai ai+1 , · · · , an+1 )
i=0
+(−1)n+1 f (an+1 a0 , · · · , · · · , an ).

An n-cochain f ∈ C n (A) is called cyclic if

f (an , a0 , · · · , an−1 ) = (−1)n f (a0 , a1 , · · · , an )

for all a0 , · · · , an in A. We denote the space of cyclic cochains on A by Cλn (A).

Lemma 4.2. The space of cyclic cochains is invariant under the action of
b, i.e. for all n,
b Cλn (A) ⊂ Cλn+1 (A).

52
Proof. Define the operators λ : C n (A) → C n (A) and b′ : C n (A) → C n+1 (A)
by
(λf )(a0 , · · · , an ) = (−1)n f (an , a0 , · · · , an−1 ),
Xn
′
(b f )(a0 , · · · , an+1 ) = (−1)i f (a0 , · · · , ai ai+1 , · · · , an+1 ).
i=0

One checks that

(1 − λ)b = b′ (1 − λ).
Since
Cλn (A) = Ker(1 − λ),
the lemma is proved.
We therefore have a subcomplex of the Hochschild complex, called the
cyclic complex of A:
b b b
Cλ0 (A) −→ Cλ1 (A) −→ Cλ2 (A) −→ · · · .
The cohomology of this complex is called the cyclic cohomology of A and
will be denoted by HC n (A), n = 0, 1, 2, · · · . A cocycle for cyclic cohomology
is called a cyclic cocycle. It satisfies the two conditions:
(1 − λ)f = 0, and bf = 0.
The inclusion of complexes
(Cλ• (A), b) −→ (C • (A), b),
induces a map I from the cyclic cohomology of A to the Hochschild coho-
mology of A with coefficients in the A-bimodule A∗ :
I : HC n (A) −→ HH n (A), n = 0, 1, 2, · · · .
We shall see that this map is part of a long exact sequence relating Hochschild
and cyclic cohomology, called Connes’ long exact sequence. For the moment
we mention that I need not be injective (see example below).

Examples
1. Let A = k be a field of characteristic zero. We have
Cλ2n (k) ≃ k, Cλ2n+1 (k) = 0.

53
The cyclic complex reduces to

0 −→ k −→ 0 −→ k −→ · · · .

It follows that for all n ≥ 0,

HC 2n (k) = k, HC 2n+1 (k) = 0.

Since HH n (k) = 0 for n ≥ 1, we conclude that the map I need not be injec-
tive and the cyclic complex is not a retraction of the Hochschild complex.

2. It is clear that HC 0 (A) = HH 0 (A) is the space of traces on A.

3. Let A = C ∞ (M) be the algebra of smooth functions on a closed smooth

manifolds M of dimension n. One checks that
Z
ϕ(f0 , f1 , · · · , fn ) = f0 df1 · · · dfn ,
M

is a cyclic n-cocycle on A. In fact the Hochschild cocycle property bϕ = 0

is a consequence of the graded commutativity of the algebra of differential
forms and the cyclic property (1 − λ)ϕ = 0 follows from Stokes formula.
This example can be generalized in several directions. For example, Let
V be an m-dimensional closed singular chain (a cycle) on M, e.g. V can be
a closed m-dimensional submanifold of M. Then integration on V defines an
m-dimensional cyclic cocycle on A:
Z
ϕ(f0 , f1 , · · · , fm ) = f0 df1 · · · dfm .
V

We obtain a map

Hm (M, C) −→ HC m (A), m = 0, 1, · · · ,

from singular homology (or its equivalents) to cyclic cohomology.

More generally, let C be a closed m-dimensional de Rham current on M.
Thus C : Ωm M → C is a continuous linear functional on Ωm M such that
dC(ω) := C(dω) = 0 for all ω ∈ Ωm−1 M. Then one checks that the cochain
ϕ defined by
ϕ(f0 , f1 , · · · , fm ) =< C, f0 df1 · · · dfm >,

54
is a cyclic cocycle on A.
A noncommutative generalization of this procedure involves the notion
of a cycle on an algebra due to Connes [13] that we recall now. It gives a
geometric and intuitively appealing presentation for cyclic cocycles. It also
leads to a definition of cup product in cyclic cohomology and the S operator.
Let
Ω = Ω0 ⊕ Ω1 ⊕ Ω1 ⊕ Ω2 · · ·
be a differential graded algebra, where we assume that Ω0 = A and the
differential d : Ωi → Ωi+1 increases the degree. d is a graded derivation in
the sense that

d(ω1 ω2 ) = d(ω1 )ω2 + (−1)deg(ω1 ) ω1 d(ω2 ), and d2 = 0.

A closed graded trace of dimension n on Ω is a linear map

Z
: Ωn −→ k

such that
Z Z
dω = 0, and (ω1 ω2 − (−1)deg(ω1 )deg(ω2 ) ω2 ω1 ) = 0,

for all Rω in Ωn−1 , ω1 in Ωi , ω2 in Ωj and i + j = n. A triple of the form

(A, Ω, ) is called a cycle over theR algebra A.
Given a closed graded trace on A, one defines a cyclic n-cocycle on A
by Z
ϕ(a0 , a1 , · · · , an ) = a0 da1 · · · dan .

Exercise: Check that ϕ is a cyclic n-cocycle.

Conversely, one can show that any cyclic cocycle on A is obtained in
this way. To do this we introduce the algebra (ΩA, d) of noncommutative
differential forms on A as follows. ΩA is the universal (nonunital) differential
graded algebra generated by A as a subalgebra. We have Ω0 A = A, and Ωn A
is linearly generated over k by expressions a0 da1 · · · dan and da1 · · · dan for
ai ∈ A (cf. [13] for details). The differential d is defined by

d(a0 da1 · · · dan ) = da0 da1 · · · dan , and d(da1 · · · dan ) = 0.

55
 Now it is easily checked that the relation
Z
ϕ(a0 , a1 , · · · , an ) = a0 da1 · · · dan ,

defines a 1-1 correspondence

{cyclic n-cocycles on A} ≃ { closed graded traces on Ωn A}.

Exercise: Give a similar description for Hochschild cocycles ϕ ∈ C n (A, A∗ ).

3. (From group cocycles to cyclic cocycles)

Let G be a discrete group and let c(g1 , · · · , gn ) be a group n-cocycle on G.
Assume c is normalized in the sense that

c(g1 , · · · , gn ) = 0,

if gi = e for some i, or if g1 g2 · · · gn = e. One checks that

ϕc (g0 , · · · , gn ) = c(g1 , · · · , gn ) if g0 g1 · · · gn = e,
= 0 otherwise,

is a cyclic n-cocycle on the group algebra kG [12, 15]. In this way one obtains
a map
H n (G, k) −→ HC n (kG), c 7→ ϕc .
By a theorem of D. Burghelea [7] (see below), the cyclic cohomology group
HC n (kG) decomposes over the conjugacy classes of G and the component
corresponding to the conjugacy class of the identity is exactly the group co-
homology H n (G, k).

4. (From Lie algebra cocycles to cyclic cocycles)

Let g be a Lie algebra acting by derivations on an algebra A. This means we
have a Lie algebra map
g → Der(A, A),
from g into the Lie algebra of derivations on A. Let τ : A → k be an invariant
trace on A. Thus τ is a trace on A and

τ (X(a)) = 0 for all X ∈ g, a ∈ A.

56
 For each n ≥ 0, define a map

∧n g −→ C n (A), c 7→ ϕc
X
ϕc (a0 , a1 , · · · an ) = sgn(σ)τ (a0 Xσ(1) (a1 ) · · · Xσ(n) (an )),
σ∈Sn

where c = X1 ∧ · · · ∧ Xn .
Exercise: Check that 1) For any c, ϕc is a Hochschild cocycle, i.e. bϕc = 0.
2) If c is a Lie algebra cycle (i.e. if δ(c) = 0), the ϕc is a cyclic cocycle.
We therefore obtain, for each n ≥ 0, a map

χτ : HnLie (g, k) −→ HC n (A), c 7→ ϕc ,

from the Lie algebra homology of g with trivial coefficients to the cyclic
cohomology of A [12].
In particular if g is abelian then HnLie (g) ≃ ∧n (g) and we obtain a well
defined map
∧n (g) −→ HC n (A), n = 0, 1, · · · .
Here is an example of this construction, first appeared in [10]. Let A = Aθ
denote the “algebra of smooth functions” on the noncommutative torus. Let
X1 = (1, 0), X2 = (0, 1). There is an action of the abelian Lie algebra R2 on
Aθ defined on generators of Aθ by

X1 (U) = U, X1 (V ) = 0,
X2 (U) = 0, X2 (V ) = V.

The induced derivations on Aθ are given by

X X
X1 ( am,n U m V n ) = mam,n U m V n ,
X X
X2 ( am,n U m V n ) = nam,n U m V n .

It is easily checked that the trace τ on Aθ defined by

X
τ( am,n U m V n ) = a0,0 ,

is invariant under the above action of R2 . The generators of H•Lie (R2 , R) are:
1, X1 , X2 , X1 ∧ X2 .

57
 We therefore obtain the following 0-dimensional, 1-dimensional and 2-
dimensional cyclic cocycles on Aθ :

ϕ0 (a0 ) = τ (a0 ),
ϕ1 (a0 , a1 ) = τ (a0 X1 (a1 )), ϕ′1 (a0 , a1 ) = τ (a0 X2 (a1 )),
ϕ2 (a0 , a1 , a2 ) = τ (a0 (X1 (a1 )X2 (a2 ) − X2 (a1 )X1 (a2 ))).

It is shown by Connes [13] that these classes generate the continuous pe-
riodic cyclic cohomology of Aθ .

5. (Cup product
R and the S-operation on cyclic cohomology) R′
Let (A, Ω, ) be an m-dimensional cycle on an algebra A and (B, Ω′ , ) and
n-dimensional cycle on an algebra B. Let Ω ⊗ Ω′ denote the (graded) tensor
product of the differential graded algebras Ω and Ω′ . By definition, we have
M
(Ω ⊗ Ω′ )n = Ωi ⊗ Ω′j ,
i+j=n

d(ω ⊗ ω ′) = (dω) ⊗ ω ′ + (−1)deg(ω) ω ⊗ (dω ′ ),

Z ′′ Z Z ′
′
ω⊗ω = ω ω ′ , if deg(ω) = m, deg(ω ′) = n.
R ′′
It is easily checked that is a closed graded trace of dimension m + n on
′
Ω⊗Ω.
Using the universal property of noncommutative differential forms, ap-
plied to the identity map A ⊗ B −→ Ω0 ⊗ Ω′0 , one obtains a morphism of
differential graded algebras

(Ω(A ⊗ B), d) −→ (Ω ⊗ Ω′ , d).

We therefore obtain a closed graded trace of dimension m + n on (Ω(A ⊗

B), d). In [13], it is shown that the resulting map, called cup product in cyclic
cohomology,

# : HC m (A) ⊗ HC n (B) → HC m+n (A ⊗ B)

is well defined.

58
Exercise: By following the steps in the definition of the cup product, find an
“explicit” formula for ϕ#ψ, when ϕ is an m-dimensional cyclic cocycle and
ψ is an n-dimensional cyclic cocycle [13].
Let β denote the generator of HC 2 (k) defined by β(1, 1, 1) = 1. Using
the cup product with β we obtain the S-map
S : HC n (A) → HC n+2 (A), ϕ 7→ ϕ#β.
Exercise: Find explicit formulas for Sϕ when ϕ is a 0 or 1 dimensional cyclic
cocycle.

In the next section we give a different approach to S via the cyclic bi-
complex.
The generalized trace map
T r : Cnλ (A) → Cnλ (Mp (A)),
defined by
(T rϕ)(a0 ⊗ m0 , · · · , an ⊗ mn ) = tr(m0 · · · mn )ϕ(a0 , · · · , an ),
can be shown to be an example of cup product as well [13]. Indeed we have
T r(ϕ) = ϕ#tr.
So far we studied the cyclic cohomology of algebras. There is a “dual”
theory called cyclic homology that we introduce now. Let A be an algebra
and for n ≥ 0 let Cn (A) = A⊗(n+1) . For each n ≥ 0, define the operators
b : Cn (A) −→ Cn−1 (A), b′ : Cn (A) −→ Cn−1 (A), and λ : Cn (A) −→ Cn (A)
by
n−1
X
b(a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = (−1)i (a0 ⊗ · · · ai ai+1 ⊗ an )
i=0
+ (−1)n (an a0 ⊗ a1 · · · ⊗ an−1 ),
n−1
X
′
b (a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = (−1)i (a0 ⊗ · · · ai ai+1 ⊗ an ),
i=0
λ(a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an ) = (−1)n (an ⊗ a0 · · · ⊗ an−1 ).
The relation
(1 − λ)b′ = b(1 − λ)

59
can be easily established. Let (C• (A), b) denote the Hochschild complex of
A with coefficients in the A-bimodule A and let
Cnλ (A) := Cn (A)/Im(1 − λ).
The relation (1 − λ)b′ = b(1 − λ) shows that the operator b is well-defined on
C•λ (A). The quotient complex
(C•λ (A), b)
is called cyclic complex of A. Its homology, denoted by HCn (A), n = 0, 1, · · · ,
is called the cyclic homology of A.

Example For n = 0, HC0 (A) = A/[A, A] is the commutator quotient of A.

Here [A, A] denotes the subspace of A generated by the commutators ab − ba,
for a and b in A.

4.2.2 Connes’ long exact sequence

Our goal in this section is to establish the long exact sequence of Connes
relating Hochschild and cyclic homology groups. There is a similar sequence
relating Hochschild and cyclic cohomology groups. Connes’ original proof in
[13] is based on the notion of cobordism of cycles. This leads to an operator
B : HH n (A) −→ HC n−1(A). He then shows that the three operators I :
HC n (A) −→ HH n (A), S : HC n (A) −→ HC n+2 (A) and B fit into a long
exact sequence. An alternative approach is based on the following bicomplex,
called the cyclic bicomplex of A and denoted by C(A) [12, 54, 53]:
.. .. ..
. . .
1−λ N 1−λ
A⊗3 ←−−− A⊗3 ←−−− A⊗3 ←−−− . . .
  
  ′ 
yb y−b yb
1−λ N 1−λ
A⊗2 ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− . . .
  
  ′ 
yb y−b yb
1−λ N 1−λ
A ←−−− A ←−−− A ←−−− . . .
Here the operator N : A⊗(n+1) −→ A⊗(n+1) is defined by
N = 1 + λ + λ2 + · · · + λn .

60
The relations

N(1 − λ) = (1 − λ)N = 0, Nb = b′ N,
(1 − λ)b′ = b(1 − λ),

can be easily verified. Coupled with relations b2 = 0, b′2 = 0, it follows that

C(A) is a bicomplex.
In particular we can consider its total complex (T otC(A), δ). We show
that there is a quasi-isomorphism of complexes
q.i.
(T otC(A), δ) ∼ (C λ (A), b).

To this end, for n ≥ 0, define a map

(T otn C(A), δ) −→ (Cnλ (A), b)

(x0 , x1 , · · · , xn ) 7→ [xn ],

where [xn ] denotes the class of xn ∈ A⊗(n+1) in Cnλ (A) = A⊗(n+1) /Im(1 − λ).
One checks that this is a morphism of complexes. Now assume that k is a
field of characteristic zero. We show that the rows of C(A), i.e. the complexes
1−λ N
A⊗n+1 ←− A⊗n+1 ←− A⊗n+1 · · ·

are exact for each n ≥ 0. The relation

Ker(1 − λ) = ImN

is obvious. To show that KerN = Im(1 − λ), define the operator

1
H= (1 + 2λ + 3λ2 + · · · + (n + 1)λn ) : A⊗n+1 −→ A⊗n+1 .
n+1
We have
(1 − λ)H = N + 1,
which shows that KerN = Im(1 − λ). It follows that the spectral sequence
converging to the total homology of C(A) collapses and the total homology is
the homology of its E 2 -term. But the E 2 -term is exactly the cyclic complex
(C•λ (A), b) of A. Alternatively, one can simply apply a “tic-tac-toe” argument
to finish the proof.

61
 We can utilize the 2-periodicity of the cyclic bicomplex C(A) to define a
short exact sequence of complexes

0 −→ T ot′ C(A) −→ T otC(A) −→ T otC(A) −→ 0,

where T ot′ C(A) denotes the total complex of the first two columns and
T otC(A)[2] is the shifted by two 2 complex. The last map is defined by
truncation:
(x0 , x1 , · · · , xn ) 7→ (x0 , · · · , xn−2 ).
The kernel of this map is the total complex of the first two columns of C(A):

T ot′n C(A) = A⊗n ⊕ A⊗(n−1) .

Now when A is unital the b′ -complex is acyclic. To prove this we define

an operator s : A⊗n −→ A⊗n+1 ,

s(a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an−1 ) = 1 ⊗ a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ an−1 .

One checks that

b′ s + sb′ = id,
which shows that the b′ -complex is acyclic. We conclude that the com-
plex T ot′• C(A) is homotopy equivalent to the Hochschild complex (C• (A), b).
Therefore the long exact sequence associated to the above short exact se-
quence is of the form:
S B I
· · · −→ HCn (A) −→ HCn−2(A) −→ HHn−1(A) −→ HCn−1 (A) −→ · · · .

This exact sequence was first obtained by Connes in 1981 [11, 13] in its
cohomological form:
S B I
· · · ←− HC n (A) ←− HC n−2 (A) ←− HH n−1(A) ←− HC n−1(A) ←− · · · .

The periodicity operator

S : HCn (A) → HCn−2 (A)

is induced by the truncation map

(x0 , x1 , · · · , xn ) 7→ (x0 , · · · , xn−2 ).

62
The operator B is the connecting homomorphism of the long exact sequence.
It can therefore be represented on the level of chains by the formula

B = Ns(1 − λ) : Cn (A) → Cn+1 (A).

Exercise: Recall how the connecting homomorphism is defined for the long
exact sequence associated to a short exact sequence of complexes and drive
the above formula for B.

Remark 2. We defined, using the cup product with the generator of HC 2 (k),
an operation S : HC n (A) −→ HC n+2(A), for n = 0, 1, · · · . It can be shown
that this definition coincides with the cohomological form of the above defini-
tion of S.

Typical applications of Connes’ long exact sequence involve extracting

information on cyclic homology from Hochschild homology. We list some of
them:

1. Let f : A → A′ be an algebra homomorphism and suppose that the

induced maps on Hochschild groups

f∗ : HHn (A) −→ HHn (A′ ),

are isomorphisms for all n ≥ 0. Then

f∗ : HCn (A) −→ HCn (A′ )

is an isomorphism for all n ≥ 0. This simply follows by comparing the SBI

sequences for A and B and applying the “five lemma”. In particular, it
follows that inner automorphisms act as identity on cyclic homology, while
inner derivations act like zero on cyclic homology.

2. (Morita invariance of cyclic homology). Let A and B be Morita equivalent

unital algebras. The Morita invariance property of cyclic homology states
that there is a natural isomorphism

HCn (A) ≃ HCn (B), n = 0, 1, · · ·

For a proof of this fact in general see [53]. In the special case where B =
Mk (A) a simple proof can be given as follows. Indeed, by Morita invariance

63
property of Hochschild homology, we know that the inclusion i : A → Mk (A)
induces isomorphism on Hochschild groups and therefore on cyclic groups by
1) above.

The bicomplex C(A) can be extended to the left. We obtain a bicomplex,

in the upper half plane,
.. .. ..
. . .
N 1−λ N 1−λ
. . . ←−−− A⊗3 ←−−− A⊗3 ←−−− A⊗3 ←−−− . . .
   
  ′   ′
yb y−b yb y−b
N 1−λ N 1−λ
. . . ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− . . .
   
  ′   ′
yb y−b yb y−b
N 1−λ N 1−λ
. . . ←−−− A ←−−− A ←−−− A ←−−− . . .

The total homology (where direct products instead of direct sums is used
in the definition of the total complex) of this bicomplex is by definition the
periodic cyclic homology of A and is denoted by HP• (A). Note that because
of the 2-periodicity of this bicomplex HP•(A) is 2-periodic.

Exercise: Show that the resulting homology is trivial if instead of direct

products we use direct sums.

Similarly one defines the periodic cyclic cohomology HP • (A), where this
time one uses direct sums for the definition of the total complex. Since
cohomology and direct limits commute, these periodic groups are indeed
direct limits of cyclic cohomology groups under the S-map:

HP n (A) = lim HC n+2k (A).

−→
One checks, using the relations

b′ s + sb′ = 1, bN = Nb′ , (1 − λ)b = b′ (1 − λ)

that
B 2 = 0, bB + Bb = 0.

64
Indeed, we have

B 2 = Ns(1 − λ)Ns(1 − λ) = 0,
bB + Bb = bNs(1 − λ) + Ns(1 − λ)b =
Nb′ s(1 − λ) + Nsb′ (1 − λ) =
N(1)(1 − λ) = 0.

The relations b2 = B 2 = bB + Bb = 0 suggest the following new bi-

complex for unital algebras, called Connes’ (b, B)-bicomplex. It was first
defined in [11, 13]. As we shall see, it leads to a third definition of cyclic
(co)homology. Let A be a unital algebra. The (b, B)-bicomplex of A is the
following bicomplex:
.. .. ..
. . .
B B
A⊗3 ←−−− A⊗2 ←−−− A
 
 
yb yb
B
A⊗2 ←−−− A


yb
A
Lemma 4.3. The complexes T otB(A) and T otC(A) are homotopy equivalent.

Proof. We define explicit chain maps between these complexes and show that
they are chain homotopic via explicit homotopies. Define

I : T otB(A) → T otC(A), I = id + sN
J : T otC(A) → T otB(A), J = id + Ns.

One checks that I and J are chain maps.

Now consider the operators

g : T otB(A) → T otB(A), g = B0 s2 N
h : T otC(A) → T otC(A), h = s,

where B0 = (1 − λ)s.

65
 We have, by direct computation:

I ◦ J = id + hδ + δh,
I ◦ J = id + gδ ′ + δ ′ g,

where δ (resp. δ ′ ) denotes the differential of T otC(A) (resp. T otB(A)). (cf.

[48] for details). The operator I appears in [54]. The operator h and the
second homotopy formula was first defined in [48].
It is clear that the above result extends to periodic cyclic (co)homology.

Examples
1. (Algebra of smooth functions). Let M be a closed smooth manifold,
A = C ∞ (M) denote the algebra of smooth complex valued functions on M,
and let (Ω• M, d) denote the de Rham complex of M. We saw that, by a
theorem of Connes, the map
1
µ : Cn (A) → Ωn M, µ(f0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ fn ) = f0 df1 · · · dfn ,
n!
induces an isomorphism between the continuous Hochschild homology of A
and differential forms on M:

HHn (A) ≃ Ωn M.

To compute the continuous cyclic homology of A, we first show that under

the map µ the operator B corresponds to the de Rham differential d. More
precisely, for each integer n ≥ 0 we have a commutative diagram:
µ
Cn (A) −−−→ Ωn M
 
 
yB yd
µ
Cn+1 (A) −−−→ Ωn+1 M

66
 We have
n
X
µB(f0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ fn ) = µ (−1)ni (1 ⊗ fi ⊗ · · · ⊗ fi−1 − (−1)n fi ⊗ · · · fi−1 ⊗ 1)
i=0
X n
1
= (−1)ni dfi · · · dfi−1
(n + 1)! i=0
1
= (n + 1)df0 · · · dfn
(n + 1)!
= dµ(f0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ fn ).

It follows that µ defines a morphism of bicomplexes

B(A) −→ Ω(A),

Where Ω(A) is the bicomplex

.. .. ..
. . .
d d
Ω2 M ←−−− Ω1 M ←−−− Ω0 M
 
 
y0 y0
d
Ω1 M ←−−− Ω0 M


y0
Ω0 M
Since µ induces isomorphisms on row homologies, it induces isomorphisms
on total homologies as well. Thus we have [13]:

HCn (A) ≃ Ωn M/Imd ⊕ HdR

n−2 k
(M) ⊕ · · · ⊕ HdR (M),

where k=0 if n is even and k = 1 if n is odd.

Using the same map µ acting between the corresponding periodic com-
plexes, one concludes that the periodic cyclic homology of A is given by
M
2i+k
HPk (A) ≃ HdR (M), k = 0, 1.
i

2. (Group algebras). Let kG denote the group algebra of a discrete

group G over a field k of characteristic zero. By a theorem of Burghelea

67
[7], Hochschild and cyclic homology groups of kG decompose over the set of
conjugacy classes of G where each summand is the group homology (with
trivial coefficients) of a group associated to a conjugacy class. We recall this
result.
Let Gb denote the set of conjugacy classes of G, G′ be the set of conjugacy
classes of elements of finite order, and let G′′ denote the set of conjugacy
classes of elements of infinite order. For an element g ∈ G, let Cg = {h ∈
G; hg = gh} denote the centralizer of g, and let Wg = Cg / < g >, where
< g > is the group generated by g. Note that these groups depend, up
to isomorphism, only on the conjugacy class of g. We denote the group
homology with trivial coefficients of a group K by H∗ (K).
The Hochschild homology of kG is given by [7, 15, 53]:
M
HHn (kG) ≃ Hn (Cg ).
b
g∈G

There is a similar, but more complicated, decomposition for the cyclic

homology of kG:
M M M
HCn (kG) ≃ ( Hn−2i (Wg )) Hn (Wg ).
g∈G′ i≥0 g∈G′′

In particular, the Hochschild group has Hn (G) as a direct summand, while

the cyclic homology group has ⊕i Hn−2i (G) as a direct summand (correspond-
ing to the conjugacy class of the identity element of G).

5 Chern-Connes character
Recall that the classical Chern character is a natural transformation from K-
theory to ordinary cohomology theory with rational coefficients [55]. More
precisely for each compact Hausdorff space X we have a natural homomor-
phism M
Ch : K 0 (X) −→ H 2i (X, Q),
i≥0

where K 0 (resp. H) denote the K-theory (resp. Cech cohomology with

rational coefficients). It satisfies certain axioms and these axioms completely
characterize Ch. But we won’t recall these axioms here since they are not
very useful for finding the noncommutative analogue of Ch. It is furthermore

68
known that Ch is a rational isomorphism in the sense that upon tensoring it
with Q we obtain an isomorphism
∼
M
ChQ : K 0 (X) ⊗ Q −→ H 2i (X, Q).
i≥0

When X is a smooth manifold there is an alternative construction of

Ch, called the Chern-Weil construction, that uses the differential geometric
notions of connection and curvature on vector bundles [55]. It goes as follows.
Let E be a complex vector bundle on X and let ∇ be a connection on E.
Thus
∇ : C ∞ (E) −→ C ∞ (E) ⊗A Ω1 X
is a C-linear map satisfying the Leibniz condition

∇(f s) = f ∇(s) + s ⊗ df,

for all smooth sections s of E and smooth functions f on X. Let

ˆ : C ∞ (E) ⊗A Ω• X −→ C ∞ (E) ⊗A Ω•+1 X,
∇

denote the natural extension of ∇ satisfying a graded Leibniz property. It

can be easily shown that the curvature operator ∇ ˆ 2 is an Ω• X-linear map.
Thus it is completely determined by its restriction to C ∞ (E). This gives us
the curvature form
R ∈ C ∞ (End(E)) ⊗ Ω2 X
of ∇. Let
T r : C ∞ (End(E)) ⊗A Ωev X → Ωev X,
denote the canonical trace. The Chern character of E is then defined to be
the class of the non-homogeneous even form

Ch(E) = T r(eR ).
1
(We have omitted the normalization factor of 2πi to be multiplied by R.) One
shows that Ch(E) is a closed form and its cohomology class is independent
of the choice of connection.
In [10, 13, 15], Connes shows that this Chern-Weil theory admits a vast
generalization. For example, for an algebra A and each integer n ≥ 0 there
are natural maps, called Chern-Connes character maps,

Ch2n
0 : K0 (A) −→ HC2n (A),

69
 Ch2n+1
1 : K1 (A) −→ HC2n+1 (A),
compatible with S-operation.
Alternatively the noncommutative Chern character can be defined as
a pairing between cyclic cohomology groups and K-theory called Chern-
Connes pairing:
HC 2n (A) ⊗ K0 (A) −→ k,
HC 2n+1 (A) ⊗ K1 (A) −→ k.
These pairings are shown to be compatible with the periodicity operator S
in the sense that
< [ϕ], [e] >=< S[ϕ], [e] >,
and thus induce a pairing between periodic cyclic cohomology and K-theory.
We start by recalling the definition of these pairings. Let ϕ(a0 , · · · , a2n )
be an even cyclic cocycle on an algebra A. For each integer k ≥ 1, let

ϕ̃ = tr#ϕ ∈ Cλ2n (Mk (A))

denote the extension of ϕ to the algebra of k × k matrices on A. Note that

ϕ̃ is a cyclic cocycle as well and is given by the formula

ϕ̃(m0 ⊗ a0 , · · · , m2n ⊗ a2n ) = tr(m0 · · · m2n )ϕ(a0 , · · · , a2n ).

Let e ∈ Mk (A) be an idempotent. Define a bilinear map by the formula

< [ϕ], [e] >= ϕ̃(e, · · · , e).

Let us first check that the value of the pairing depends only on the cyclic
cohomology class of ϕ in HC 2n (A). Suffices to assume k = 1 (why?). Let
ϕ = bψ with ψ ∈ Cλ2n−1 (A), be a coboundary. Then we have

ϕ(e, · · · , e) = bψ(e, · · · , e)
= ψ(ee, e, · · · , e) − ψ(e, ee, · · · , e) + · · · + (−1)2n ψ(ee, e, · · · , e)
= ψ(e, · · · , e)
= 0,

where the last relation follows from the cyclic property of ψ.

To verify that the value of < [ϕ], [e] >, for fixed ϕ, only depends on the
class of [e] ∈ K0 (A) we have to check that for u ∈ GLk (A) an invertible

70
matrix, we have < [ϕ], [e] >=< [ϕ], [ueu−1 ] >. Again suffices to show this
for k = 1. But this is exactly the fact, proved in the last section, that inner
automorphisms act by identity on cyclic cohomology.
The formulas in the odd case are as follows. Given an invertible matrix
u ∈ Mk (A) and an odd cyclic cocycle ϕ(a0 , · · · , a2n+1 ) on A, we have

< [ϕ], [u] >= ϕ̃(u−1 − 1, u − 1, · · · , u−1 − 1, u − 1).

Exercise: Show that the above formula defines a pairing K1 (A)⊗HC 2n+1 (A) →
k.
There are also formulas for Chern-Connes pairings when the cyclic cocycle
is in the (b, B) or cyclic bicomplex; but we won’t recall them here (cf. [15],
[53]).
There is an alternative “infinitesimal proof” of the well-definement of
these pairings which works for Banach (or certain classes of topological)
algebras where elements of K0 (A) can be defined as smooth homotopy classes
of idempotents [15]:
Lemma 5.1. Let et , 0 ≤ t ≤ 1, be a smooth family of idempotents in a
Banach algebra A. There exists an smooth family xt , 0 ≤ t ≤ 1 of elements
of A such that
. d
et := (et ) = [xt , et ], for 0 ≤ t ≤ 1.
dt
Proof. Let
. . .
xt = [et , et ] = et et − et et .
Differentiating the idempotent condition e2t = et with respect to t we obtain
d 2 . . .
(et ) = et et + et et = et .
dt
Multiplying this last relation on the left by et we obtain
.
et et et = 0.

Now we have
. . . . .
[xt , et ] = [et et − et et , et ] = et et + et et = et .

71
 It follows that if τ : A → C is a trace (= a cyclic zero cocycle), then

d d .
< τ, et >= τ (et ) = τ (et ) = τ ([xt , et ]) = 0.
dt dt
So that the value of the pairing, for a fixed τ , depends only on the homotopy
class of the idempotent. This shows that the pairing

{ traces on A} × K0 (A) −→ C

is well-defined.
This is generalized in

Lemma 5.2. Let ϕ(a0 , · · · , a2n ) be a cyclic 2n-cocycle on A and let et be a

smooth family of idempotents in A. Then the number

< [ϕ], [et ] >= ϕ(et , · · · , et )

is constant in t.

Proof. Differentiating with respect to t and using the above Lemma, we

obtain
d . .
ϕ(et , · · · , et ) = ϕ(et , · · · , et ) + ϕ(et , et , · · · , et )
dt
.
· · · + ϕ(et , · · · , et , et )
X2n
= ϕ(et , · · · , [xt , et ], · · · , et )
i=0
= Lxt ϕ(et , · · · , et ).

We saw that inner derivations act trivially on Hochschild and cyclic coho-
mology. This means that for each t there is a cyclic cocchain ψt such that
the Lie derivative Lxt ϕ = bψt . We then have

d
ϕ(et , · · · , et ) = (bψt )(et , · · · , et ) = 0.
dt

Exercise: Repeat the above proof in the odd case.

72
 The formulas for the even and odd Chern-Connes character maps

Ch2n
0 : K0 (A) −→ HC2n (A),

Ch2n+1
1 : K1 (A) −→ HC2n+1 (A),
are as follows. In the even case, given an idempotent e = (eij ) ∈ Mk (A), we
have
X
Ch2n0 (e) = T r(e
| ⊗ e ·
{z· · ⊗ e
}) = ei0 i1 ⊗ ei1 i2 ⊗ · · · ⊗ ei2n i0 .
2n+1 i0 ,i1 ,···i2n

In low dimensions we have

k
X
Ch00 (e) = eii ,
i=1
k X
X k X
k
Ch20 (e) = ei0 i1 ⊗ ei1 i2 ⊗ ei2 i0 .
i0 =1 i1 =1 i2 =1

In the odd case, given an invertible matrix u ∈ Mk (A), we have

Ch2n+1
1 ([u]) = T r((u−1 − 1) ⊗ (u − 1) ⊗ · · · ⊗ (u−1 − 1) ⊗ (u − 1)).
| {z }
2n+2

Examples:

1. For n = 0, HC 0 (A) is the space of traces on A. Therefore the Chern-

Connes pairing reduces to the map

{traces on A} × K0 (A) −→ k,
n
X
< τ, [e] >= τ (eii ),
i=1

where e = [eij ] ∈ Mn (A) is an idempotent. The induced function on K0 (A)

is called the dimension function and denoted by dimτ . Here is an slightly
different approach to this dimension function.

73
 Let E be a finite projective right A-module. A trace τ on A induces a
trace on the endomorphism algebra of E,

T r : EndA (E) −→ k

as follows. First assume that E = An is a free module. Then EndA (E) ≃

Mn (A) and our trace map is defined by
X
T r(ai,j ) = aii .

It is easy to check that the above map is a trace. In general, there is an

A-module F such that E ⊕ F ≃ An is a free module and EndA (E) embeds in
Mn (A). One can check that the induced trace on EndA (E) is independent
of the choice of splitting.
Exercise: Since E is finite and projectice, we have EndA (E) ≃ E ⊗A E ∗ . The
induced trace is simply the canonical pairing between E and E ∗ .

Definition 5.1. The dimension function associated to a trace τ on A is the

additive map
dimτ : K0 (A) −→ k,
induced by the map
dimτ (E) = T r(idE ),
for any finite projective A-module E.

It is clear that if E is a vector bundle on a connected topological space X

and τ (f ) = f (x0 ), where x0 ∈ X is a fixed point, then dimτ (E) is the rank
of the vector bundle E and is an integer. One of the striking features of non-
commutative geometry is the existence of noncommutative vector bundles
with non integral dimensions. A beautiful example of this phenomenon is
shown by Rieffel’s idempotent e ∈ Aθ with τ (e) = θ, where τ is the canonical
trace on the noncommutative torus [15].

2. Let A = C ∞ (S 1 ) denote the algebra of smooth complex valued functions

on the circle. One knows that K1 (A) ≃ K 1 (S 1 ) ≃ Z and u(z) = z is a
generator of this group. Let
Z
ϕ(f0 , f1 ) = f0 df1
S1

74
denote the cyclic cocycle on A representing the fundamental class of S 1 in
de Rham homology. We have
Z
−1
< [ϕ], [u] >= ϕ(u, u ) = udu−1 = −2πi.
S1

Alternatively the Chern character

Ch11 ([u]) = u ⊗ u−1 ∈ HC1(A) ≃ HdR

1
(S 1 ),

is the class of the differential form ω = z −1 dz, representing the fundamental

class of S 1 in de Rham cohomology.

3. Let A = C ∞ (S 2 ) and let e ∈ M2 (A) denote the idempotent representing

the Hopf line bundle on S 2 :
 
1 1 + x3 x1 + ix2
e= .
2 x1 − ix2 1 − x3

Let us check that under the map

HC2 (A) → Ω2 S 2 , a0 ⊗ a1 ⊗ a2 7→ a0 da1 da2 ,

the Chern-Connes character of e corresponds to the fundamental class of S 2 .

We have
Ch20 (e) = T r(e ⊗ e ⊗ e) 7→ T r(edede) =
   
1 1 + x3 x1 + ix2 dx3 dx1 + idx2 dx3 dx1 + idx2
Tr .
8 x1 − ix2 1 − x3 dx1 − idx2 −dx3 dx1 − idx2 −dx3
Performing the computation one obtains
−i
Ch20 (e) 7→ (x1 dx2 dx3 − x2 dx1 dx3 + x3 dx1 dx2 ).
2
One can then integrate this 2-form on the two sphere S 2 . The result is −2πi.
In particular the class of e in K0 (A) is non-trivial, a fact which can not be
proved using just Ch00 (e) = T r(e).

4. For smooth commutative algebras, the noncommutative Chern character

reduces to the classical Chern character. We verify this only in the even case.

75
 Let M be a smooth closed manifold and let E be a complex vector bundle
on M. Let e ∈ C ∞ (M, Mn (C) be an idempotent representing the vector
bundle E. One can check that the following formula defines a connection on
E, called the Levi-Civita or Grassmanian connection:

∇(eV ) = edV,

where V : M → Cn is a smooth function and eV represents an arbitrary

smooth section of E. Computing the curvature form we obtain
ˆ 2 (eV ) = ededV = [Link],
R(eV ) = ∇

which shows that the curvature form is the “matrix valued 2-form”

R = edede.

¿From e2 = e, one easily obtains ede.e = 0. This implies that

Rn = (edede)n = e |dede ·{z

· · dede} .
2n

Under the canonical map

2n 1
HC2n (A) → HdR (M), a0 ⊗ · · · ⊗ a2n 7→ a0 da1 · · · da2n ,
(2n)!

we have
1
Ch0n (e) := T r(e ⊗ · · · ⊗ e) 7→ T r(edede · · · de).
(2n)!

The classical Chern-Weil formula for Ch(E) is

X Rn
Ch(E) = T r(eR ) = T r( ).
n≥0
n!

So that its n th component is given by

Rn 1 1
Tr = T r((edede)n ) = T r(ede · · · de).
n! n! n!

76
A Banach and C ∗-algebras
By an algebra in this book we mean an associative algebra over a commutative
unital ground ring k. An algebra is called unital if there is a (necessarily
unique) element 1 ∈ A such that 1a = a1 = a for all a ∈ A. It is called
commutative if ab = ba for all a, b ∈ A.
Now let k = R or C be the field of real or complex numbers. A norm on
a real or complex algebra A is a map

k k : A → R,

such that for all a, b in A and λ in k we have:

1) kak ≥ 0, and kak = 0 iff a = 0,

2) ka + bk ≤ kak + kbk,

3) kλak = |λ|kak,

4) kabk ≤ kakkbk.

If A is unital, we assume that k1k = 1. An algebra endowed with a norm is

called a normed algebra.
A Banach algebra is a normed algebra which is complete. Recall that
a normed vector space A is called complete if any Cauchy sequence in A
is convergent. One of the main consequencesP of completeness is that abso-
∞
lutely
P∞ convergent series are convergent, i.e. if n=1 kan k is convergent,
P∞ then
n=1 an is convergent in A. In particular the geometric series n=1 an is
convergent if kak < 1. From this it easily follows that the group of invertible
elements in a unital Banach algebra A is an open subset of A.
An ∗-algebra is a complex algebra endowed with an ∗-operation, i.e. a
map
∗ : A → A, a 7→ a∗ ,
which is anti-linear and involutive:

1. (a + b)∗ = a∗ + b∗ , (λa)∗ = λ̄a∗ ,

2. (ab)∗ = b∗ a∗ ,

3. (a∗ )∗ = a,

77
for all a, b in A and λ in C.
A Banach ∗-algebra is a complex Banach algebra endowed with an ∗-
operation such that for all a ∈ A, ka∗ k = kak. In particular for all a in A we
have
ka∗ ak ≤ ka∗ kkak = kak2 .

Definition A.1. A C ∗ -algebra is a Banach ∗-algebra A such that for all

a ∈ A,
kaa∗ k = kak2 .
We refer to this last identity as the C ∗ -identity.

For reasons that will become clear later in this section, C ∗ -algebras oc-
cupy a very special place among all Banach algebras. This should be com-
pared with the role played by Hilbert spaces among all Banach spaces. In
fact, as we shall see there is an intimate relationship between Hilbert spaces
and C ∗ -algebras thanks to the GNS construction and the Gelfand-Naimark
embedding theorem.
A morphism of C ∗ -algebras is an algebra homomorphism

f : A −→ B

between C ∗ -algebras A and B such that f preserves the ∗ structure, i.e.

f (a∗ ) = f (a)∗ , for all a ∈ A.

It can be shown that morphisms of C ∗ − algebras are contractive in the

sense that for all a ∈ A,
kf (a)k ≤ kak.
In particular they are automatically continuous. It follows from this fact that
the norm of a C ∗ -algebra is unique in the sense that if (A, k k1) and (A, k k2 )
are both C ∗ −algebras then

kak1 = kak2 ,

for all a ∈ A. Note also that a morphism f of C ∗ −algebras is an isomorphism

if an only if f is one to one and onto. Isomorphisms of C ∗ -algebras are
necessarily isometric.
In sharp distinction from C ∗ -algebras, one can have different Banach al-
gebra norms on the same algebra. For example on the algebra of n × n

78
matrices one can have different Banach algebra norms and only one of them
is a C ∗ -norm.

Examples:

1. (commutative C ∗ -algebras). Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff

space. We associate to X several classes of algebras of functions on X
which are C ∗ -algebras.
1.a Let

C0 (X) = {f : X → C; f is continuous and f vanishes at ∞} .

By definition, f vanishes at ∞ if for all ǫ > 0 there exists a compact

subset K ⊂ X so that |f (x)| < ǫ for all x ∈ X \ K. Under pointwise
addition and scalar multiplication C0 (X) is obviously an algebra over
the field of complex numbers C. Endowed with the sup-norm

kf k = kf k∞ = sup{|f (x)|; x ∈ X},

and ∗-operation
f 7→ f ∗ , f ∗ (x) = f¯(x),
one checks that C0 (X) is a commutative C ∗ -algebra. It is unital if and
only if X is compact. If X is compact, we simply write C(X) instead
of C0 (X).
By a theorem of Gelfand and Naimark, any commutative C ∗ -algebra
is of the type C0 (X) for some locally compact Hausdorff space X (see
below).
1.b Let
Cb (X) = {f : X → C; f is continuous and bounded}.
Then with the same operations as above, Cb (X) is a unital C ∗ -algebra.
Note that C0 (X) ⊂ Cb (X) is an essential ideal in Cb (X). (An ideal I
in an algebra A is an essential ideal if for all a in A, aI = 0 ⇒ a = 0.)
2. (commutative Banach algebras). It is easy to give examples of Banach
algebras which are not C ∗ -algebras. For an integer n ≥ 1, let

C n [0, 1] = {f : [0, 1] → C; f ∈ C n },

79
 be the space of functions with continuous n-th derivative. We denote
the i-th derivative of f by f (i) . With the norm
n
X kf (i) k∞
kf kn =
i=0
i!

and the ∗-operation f ∗ (x) = f¯(x), one checks that C n [0, 1] is a Banach
∗-algebra. It is, however, not a C ∗ -algebra as one can easily show that
the C ∗ -identity fails. Note that for all f ∈ C n [0, 1],

kf k∞ ≤ kf kn .

3. (noncommutative C ∗ -algebras). By a theorem of Gelfand and Naimark

recalled below, any C ∗ -algebra can be realized as a closed ∗-subalgebra
of the algebra of bounded operators on a complex Hilbert space. We
start with the simplest examples: the algebra of complex n by n ma-
trices.
3.a Let A = Mn (C) be the algebra of n by n matrices over the field of
complex numbers C. With operator norm and the standard adjoint
operation T 7→ T ∗ , A is a C ∗ -algebra (see below).
A direct sum of matrix algebras

A = Mn1 (C) ⊕ Mn2 (C) ⊕ · · · ⊕ Mnk (C)

is a C ∗ -algebra as well. It can be shown that any finite dimensional

C ∗ -algebra is unital and is a direct sum of matrix algebras as above
[31]. In other words, finite dimensional C ∗ -algebras are semi-simple.
3.b The above example can be generalized as follows. Let H be a complex
Hilbert space and let A = L(H) denote the set of bounded linear
operators H → H. For a bounded operator T , we define T ∗ to be the
adjoint of T defined by

< T x, y >=< x, T ∗ y >, x, y ∈ H.

Under the usual algebraic operations of addition and multiplication of

operators and the operator norm

kT k = sup{kT (x)k; kxk ≤ 1},

80
 L(H) is a C ∗ -algebra.
It is clear that any subalgebra A ⊂ L(H) which is self-adjoint in the
sense that
T ∈ A ⇒ T ∗ ∈ A,
and is norm closed, in the sense that

Tn ∈ A, kTn − T k → 0 ⇒ T ∈ A,

is a C ∗ -algebra.

3.c (group C ∗ −algebras). Let G be a discrete group and let H = l2 G

denote the Hilbert space of square summable functions on G;
X
H = {f : G → C; |f (g)|2 < ∞}.
g∈G

The left regular representation of G is the unitary representation π of

G on H, defined by
(πg)f (h) = f (g −1h).
It has a linear extension to an (injective) algebra homomorphism

π : CG −→ L(H),

from the group algebra of G to the algebra of bounded operators on

H. Its image π(CG) is a ∗-subalgebra of L(H).
The reduced group C ∗ -algebra of G, denoted by Cr∗ G, is the norm closure
of π(CG) in L(H). It is obviously a C ∗ -algebra.
There is second C ∗ -algebra associated to any discrete group G as fol-
lows. The (non-reduced) group C ∗ -algebra of G is the norm completion
of the ∗-algebra CG under the norm

kf k = sup {kπ(f )k; π is a ∗-representation of CG},

where by a ∗-representation we mean a ∗-representation

P on a Hilbert
space. Note that kf k is finite since for f = g∈G ag g (finite sum) and
any *-representation π we have
X X X
kπ(f )k ≤ kπ(ag g)k ≤ |ag |kπ(g)k ≤ |ag |.

81
 By its very definition it is clear that there is a 1-1 correspondence
between unitary representations of G and C ∗ representations of C ∗ G.
Since the identity map id : (CG, k k) → (CG, k kr ) is continuous, we
obtain a surjective C ∗ −algebra homomorphism

C ∗ G −→ Cr∗ G.

It is known that this map is an isomorphism if and only if G is an

amenable group [?]. Abelian groups are amenable.
We give a few examples of reduced group C ∗ -algebras. Let G be an
abelian group and Ĝ = Hom(G, T) the group of characters of G. It is a
locally compact Hausdorff space. Moreover it is easily seen that Ĝ is in
fact homeomorphic with the space of characters, or the maximal ideal
space, of the C ∗ -algebra Cr∗ G. Thus the Gelfand transform defines an
isomorphism of C ∗ -algebras

C ∗ G ≃ C0 (Ĝ).

In general one should think of the group C ∗ -algebra of a group G as the

“algebra of functions” on the noncommutative space representing the
unitary dual of G. Note that, by the above paragraph, this is justified
in the commutative case. In the noncommutative case, the unitary dual
is a badly behaved space in general but the noncommutative dual is a
perfectly legitimate noncommutative space (see the unitary dual of the
infinite dihedral group in [15] and its noncommutative replacement).
Let G be a finite group. Since G is finite the group C ∗ -algebra coincides
with the group algebra of G. From basic representation theory we know
that the group algebra CG decomposes as a sum of matrix algebras

C ∗ G ≃ CG ≃ ⊕Mni (C),

where the summation is over the set of conjugacy classes of G.

It is generally believed that the classic paper of Gelfand and Naimark [35]
is the birth place of the theory of C ∗ -algebras. The following two results on
the structure of C ∗ -algebras are proved in this paper:

82
Theorem A.1 (Gelfand-Naimark [35]). a) Let A be a commutative C ∗ -
algebra and let Ω(A) denote the maximal ideal space of A. Then the Gelfand
transform
A → C0 (Ω(A)), a 7→ â,
is an isomorphism of C ∗ -algebras.
b) Any C ∗ -algebra is isomorphic to a C ∗ -subalgebra of the algebra L(H) of
bounded linear operators on some Hilbert space H.

In the remainder of this appendix we sketch the proofs of statements a)

and b) above. They are based on Gelfand’s theory of commutative Banach
algebras, and the Gelfand-Naimark-Segal (GNS) construction of representa-
tions of C ∗ −algebras from states, respectively.

A.1 Gelfand’s theory of commutative Banach algebras

The whole theory is based on the notion of spectrum of an element of a
Banach algebra and the fact that the spectrum is non-empty. The notion
of spectrum can be defined for elements of an arbitrary algebra and it can
be easily shown that for finitely generated complex algebras the spectrum
is non-empty. As is shown in [9], this latter fact leads to an easy proof of
Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz. This makes the proofs of the two major duality
theorems remarkably similar. We use this approach in this book.
Let A be a unital algebra over a field F. The spectrum of an element
a ∈ A is defined by

sp(a) = {λ ∈ F; a − λ1 is not invertible} .

We should think of the spectrum as the noncommutative analogue of the

set of values of a function. This is justified in Example 1 below.

Examples:

1. Let A = C(X) be the algebra of continuous complex valued functions

on a compact space X. For any f ∈ A,

sp(f ) = {f (x); x ∈ X},

is the range of f .

83
 2. Let A = Mn (F) be the algebra of n × n matrices with coefficients in F.
For any matrix a ∈ A

sp(a) = {λ ∈ F; det(a − λ1) = 0} ,

is the set of eigenvalues of a.

Exercise:
1) Show that if a is nilpotent then sp (a) = {0}.
2) Show that
sp(ab) \ {0} = sp(ba) \ {0}.
3) Let T : H → H be a Fredholm operator on a Hilbert space H. Let Q be
an operator such that 1 − P Q and 1 − QP are trace class operators. Show
that
Index(T ) = T r(1 − P Q) − T r(1 − QP ).

In general, the spectrum may be empty. We give two general results

that guarantee the spectrum is non-empty. They are at the foundation of
Gelfand-Naimark theorem and Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz. Part b) is in [9].
Theorem A.2. (a) (Gelfand) Let A be a unital Banach algebra over C.
Then for any a ∈ A, sp(a) 6= ∅.

(b) Let A be a unital algebra over C. Assume dimC A is countable. Then

for any a ∈ A, sp(a) 6= ∅. Furthermore, an element a is nilpotent if
and only if sp (a) = {0}.
Proof. We sketch a proof of both statements. For a) assume the spectrum
of an element a is empty. Then the function

R : C → A, λ 7→ (a − λ1)−1 ,

is holomorphic (in an extended sense), non-constant, and bounded. This

is easily shown to contradict the classical Liouville’s theorem from complex
analysis.
For b), again assume the spectrum of a is empty. Then it can be shown
that the uncountable set

{(a − λ1)−1 ; λ ∈ C}

84
is a linearly independent set. But this contradicts the fact that dimC A is
countable.
For the second part of b), assume sp (a) = {0}. Since dimC (A) is count-
able, any element a ∈ A satisfies a polynomial equation. Let

p(a) = ak (a − λ1 ) · · · (a − λn ) = 0

be the minimal polynomial of A. Then n = 0 since otherwise an element

a − λi is not invertible with λi 6= 0. But this contradicts our assumption that
sp (a) = {0}. The other direction is true in general and is easy.
The first part of the following corollary is known as Gelfand-Mazur the-
orem.

Corollary A.1. Let A be either a unital complex Banach algebra or a unital

complex algebra such that dimC A is countable. If A is a division algebra,
then A ≃ C.

Let A be an algebra. By a character of A we mean a non-zero algebra

homomorphism
ϕ : A → F.
Note that if A is unital, then ϕ(1) = 1. We establish the link between
characters and maximal ideals of A. For the following result A is either
a commutative unital complex Banach algebra, or is a commutative unital
algebra with dimC A countable.

Corollary A.2. The relation I = ker ϕ defines a 1-1 correspondence between

the set of maximal ideals of A and the set of characters of A.

Before embarking on the proof of Gelfand-Naimark theorem, we sketch a

proof of Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz, following [9].
Let
A = C[x1 , · · · , xn ]/I
be a finitely generated commutative reduced algebra. Recall that reduced
means if an = 0 for some n then a = 0 (no nilpotent elements). Equivalently
the ideal I is radical. Let

V = {z ∈ Cn ; p(z) = 0, for all p in I},

85
let J(V ) be the ideal of functions vanishing on V , and let
C[V ] = C[x1 , · · · , xn ]/J(V )
be the algebra of regular functions on V . Since I ⊂ J(V ), we have an algebra
homomorphism
π : A −→ C[V ].
One of the original forms of Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz states that this map is
an isomorphism. It is clearly surjective. For its injectivity, let a ∈ A and let
π(a) = 0, or equivalently π(a) ∈ J(V ). Since a vanishes on all points of V ,
it follows that a is in the intersection of all the maximal ideals of A. This
shows that its spectrum sp (A)={0}. By Theorem A.2 (b), it follows that a
is nilpotent and since A is reduced, we have a = 0.
The rest of this section is devoted to sketch a proof of the Gelfand-
Naimark theorem on the structure of commutative C ∗ -algebras. . Let A
be a unital Banach algebra. It is easy to see that any character of A is con-
tinuous of norm 1. To prove this, note that if this is notPthe case then there
exists an a ∈ A, with kak < 1 and ϕ(a) = 1. Let b = n≥1 an . Then from
a + ab = b, we have
ϕ(b) = ϕ(a) + ϕ(a)ϕ(b) = 1 + ϕ(b),
which is impossible. Therefore kϕk ≤ 1, and since ϕ(1) = 1, kϕk = 1.
Let A be a complex Banach algebra and let Ω(A) denote the set of char-
acters of A. Thus if A is unital, then Ω(A)= set of maximal ideals of A. It is
clear that a pointwise limit of characters is again a character. Thus Ω(A) is
a closed subset of the unit ball of the dual space A∗ . Since the latter space
is a compact Hausdorff space in the weak∗ topology, we conclude that Ω(A)
is also a compact Hausdorff space.
If A is not unital, let A+ = A ⊕ C be the unitization of A. It is clear
that Ω(A) = Ω(A+ ) \ {ϕ0 }, where ϕ0 is the trivial character ϕ0 (a) = 0 for all
a ∈ A. Since Ω(A+ ) is compact, we conclude that Ω(A) is a locally compact
Hausdorff space. We have thus proved the lemma:
Lemma A.1. Let A be a Banach algebra. Then Ω(A) is a locally compact
Hausdorff space. Ω(A) is compact if and only if A is unital.
Let f : A → B be a continuous homomorphism of commutative unital
Banach algebras. Define a map Ω(f ) = f ∗ : Ω(B) → Ω(A) by
f ∗ (ϕ) = ϕ ◦ f.

86
It is clear that f ∗ ϕ is multiplicative, linear and continuous. Thus we have
defined the spectrum functor Ω from the category of commutative unital
complex Banach algebras to the category of compact Hausdorff spaces.
Next we define the Gelfand transform. Let A be a commutative Banach
algebra. The Gelfand transform is the map Γ defined by

Γ : A → C0 (Ω(A)),

a 7→ â , â(ϕ) = ϕ(a).
This map is obviously an algebra homomorphism. It is also clear that kΓk ≤
1, i.e. Γ is contractive.
The spectrum of an element is easily seen to be a closed and bounded
subset Pof C (this follows from: k1 − ak < 1 ⇒ a is invertible with inverse
a−1 = n≥0 (1 − a)n .) Let

r(a) = max {|λ|; λ ∈ sp(a)},

denote the spectral radius of an element a ∈ A. Note that r(a) ≤ kak.

Now Corollary 6.2 tells us that

sp(a) = {ϕ(a); ϕ ∈ Ω(A)}.

Then following result is then immediate:

Proposition A.1. The Gelfand transform A → C0 (Ω(A)) is a norm decreas-

ing algebra homomorphism and its image separates points of Ω(A). Moreover,
for all a ∈ A, kâk∞ = r(a) .

The kernel of the Gelfand transform is called the radical of the Banach
algebra A. It consists of elements a whose spectral radius r(a) = 0, or equiv-
alently, sp(a) = {0}. Hence the radical contains all the nilpotent elements.
But it may contain more. An element a is called quasi-nilpotent if sp(a) = 0.
A is said to be semi-simple if its radical is zero, i.e. the only quasi-nilpotent
elements of A is 0.

Example. We give an example of a commutative Banach algebra for which

the Gelfand transform is injective but not surjective. Let H(D) be the space
of continuous functions on the unit disk D which are holomorphic in the
interior of the disk. With the sup-norm kf k = kf k∞ it is a Banach algebra.

87
It is, however, not a C ∗ -algebra (why?). Show that Ω(A) ≃ D and the
Gelfand transform is an isometric embedding H(D) → C(D).
We are now ready to prove the first main theorem of Gelfand and Naimark
in [35]: for commutative C ∗ -algebras Γ is an isometric ∗-isomorphism. We
need a few simple facts about C ∗ -algebras first.
Let f : A → B be a morphism of C ∗ -algebras. It is easily seen that sp
(f (a)) ⊂ sp (a). Hence, using the C ∗ -identity, we have

kf (a)k2 = kf (a)f (a∗)k = kf (aa∗ )k = r(a∗ a) ≤ ka∗ ak = kak2 .

Let a ∈ A be a standpoint element (a = a∗ ). Then sp (a) ⊂ R is real.

Indeed since eia is unitary its spectrum is located on the unit circle (why?).
Hence for λ ∈ sp(a), eiλ is located on the unit circle which shows that λ is
real. From this it follows that if f : A → C is an algebra homomorphism (a
character), then f (a∗ ) = f (a), for all a.

Theorem A.3. Let A be a commutative C ∗ -algebra. The Gelfand transform

A → C0 (Ω(A)) is an isomorphism of C ∗ -algebras.

Proof. We prove the unital case. The non-unital case follows with minor
modifications [31]. What we have shown so far amounts to the fact that Γ
is an isometric ∗-algebra map whose image separates points of Ω(A). Thus
Γ(A) is a closed ∗-subalgebra of C(Ω(A)) that separates points of Ω(A). By
Stone-Weierstrass theorem, Γ(A) = C(Ω(A)).

The above theorem is one of the landmarks of Gelfand’s theory of commu-

tative Banach algebras. While a complete classification of all commutative
Banach algebras seems to be impossible, this result classifies all commutative
C ∗ -algebras.
Care must be applied in dealing with non-compact spaces and non-unital
algebras. First of all it is clear that if X is not compact then the pull-back
f ∗ : C0 (Y ) → C0 (X), f ∗ (g) = g ◦ f of a continuous map f : X → Y is well
defined if and only if f is a proper map. Secondly, one notes that not all C ∗ -
maps C0 (Y ) → C0 (X) are obtained in this way. For example, for X = (0, 1)
an open interval and Y a single point, the zero map 0 : C0 (Y ) → C0 (X),
which is always a C ∗ -morphism, is not the pull-back of any proper map. It
turns out that one way to single out the appropriate class of morphisms is
as follows. A morphism of C ∗ -algebras ϕ : A → B is called proper if for an

88
approximate unit (ei ) of A, ϕ(ei ) is an approximate unit of B. Recall that
[31, 37] an approximate unit of a C ∗ -algebra A is an increasing net of positive
elements (ei ), i ∈ I, of A such that for all a ∈ A, ei a → a, or equivalently,
aei → a. Now it can be shown that any proper map C0 (Y ) → C0 (X) is
the pull-back of a proper map X → Y . Similarly, in the other direction, if
ϕ : A → B is a proper morphism of C ∗ -algebras, then Ω(ϕ) : Ω(B) → Ω(A)
is a proper continuous map. We refer to [37] and references therein for more
details.
We are now half-way through showing that the functors C0 and Ω are
quasi-inverse to each other. But the proof of the other half is much simpler
and is left to the reader.
Lemma A.2. Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff space. Then the evalu-
ation map
X → Ω(C0 (X)), x 7→ ϕx ,
ϕx (f ) = f (x),
is a homeomorphism.
Example A.1. We give a few elementary applications of the Gelfand-Naimark
correspondence between commutative C ∗ -algebras and locally compact spaces.
1. (Idempotents and connectedness). Let A be a unital commutative C ∗ -
algebra. Then Ω(A) is disconnected iff A has a non-trivial idempotent
(i.e. an element e 6= 0, 1 such that e2 = e).
2. (Ideals and closed subsets). Let X be a compact Hausdorff space. The
Gelfand-Naimark duality shows that there is a 1-1 correspondence

{closed subsets of X} ↔ {closed ideals of C(X)},

where to each closed subset Y ⊂ X, we associate the ideal

I = {f ∈ C(X); f (y) = 0 ∀ y ∈ Y }

of all functions vanishing on Y . We have natural isomorphisms

C0 (X \ Y ) ≃ I,

C0 (X)/I ≃ C0 (Y ),
C0 (X/Y ) ≃ C0 (X \ Y )+ .

89
 3. (Essential ideals and compactification) Let X be a locally compact Haus-
dorff space. Recall that a Hausdorff compactification of X is a compact
Hausdorff space Y where X is homeomorphic to a dense subset of Y .
We consider X as a subspace of Y . Then X is open in Y and its
boundary Y \ X is compact. We have an exact sequence

0 → C0 (X) → C(Y ) → C(Y \ X) → 0,

where C0 (X) is an essential ideal of C(Y ). Conversely, show that any

extension
0 → C0 (X) → A → B → 0,
Where A is a unital C ∗ -algebra and C0 (X) is an essential ideal of A,
defines a Hausdorff compactification of X. Thus, we have a 1-1 corre-
spondence between Hausdorff compactifications of X and (isomorphism
classes of ) essential extensions of C0 (X). In particular, the 1-point
compactification and the Stone-Cech compactifications correspond to

0 → C0 (X) → C0 (X)+ → C → 0,

and
0 → C0 (X) → Cb (X) → C(βX) → 0

A.2 States and the GNS construction

Our goal in this section is to sketch a proof of the second main result of
Gelfand and Naimark in [35] to the effect that any C ∗ -algebra can be em-
bedded in the algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space. The main
idea of the proof is an adaptation of the idea of left regular representation of
algebras to the context of C ∗ -algebras, called Gelfand-Naimark-Segal (GNS)
construction.
A positive linear functional on a C ∗ -algebra A is a C-linear map ϕ : A −→
C such that for all a in A,
ϕ(a∗ a) ≥ 0.
A state on A is a positive linear functional ϕ with kϕk = 1. It can be shown
that if A is unital then this last condition is equivalent to ϕ(1) = 1.
If ϕ1 and ϕ2 are states then for any t ∈ [0, 1], tϕ1 +(1-t) ϕ2 is a state as
well. Thus the set of states of A, denoted by S(A), form a convex subset of

90
the unit ball of A∗ . The extreme points of S(A) are called pure states.

Examples:

1. States are noncommutative analogues of probability measures. This idea

is corroborated by the Riesz representation theorem: For a locally compact
Hausdorff space X there is a 1-1 correspondence between states on C0 (X) and
Borel probability measures on X. To a probability measure µ is associated
the stats ϕ defined by Z
ϕ(f ) = f dµ.
X
ϕ is a pure state if and only if µ = δx is a Dirac measure for a point x ∈ X.
2. Let A = Mn (C) and p ∈ A be a positive matrix with tr(p) = 1. (Such
matrices, and their infinite dimensional analogues, are called density matrices
in quantum statistical mechanics.) Then

ϕ(a) = tr(ap)

defines a state on A.
3. Let π : A −→ L(H) be a representation of a unital C ∗ -algebra A on
a Hilbert space H. This simply means that π is a morphism of unital C ∗ -
algebras. Let x ∈ H be a vector of length one . Then

ϕ(a) =< π(a)x, x >

defines a state on A, called a vector state. In the following we show that,

conversely, any state on A is a vector state with respect to a suitable repre-
sentation called the GNS representation.
Let ϕ be a positive linear functional on A. Then

< a, b >:= ϕ(b∗ a)

is linear in the first variable and anti-linear in the second variable. It is also
semi-definite in the sense that < a, a >= ϕ(a∗ a) ≥ 0 for all a in A. Thus it
satisfies the Cauchy- Schwartz inequality: for all a, b

|ϕ(b∗ a)|2 ≤ ϕ(a∗ a)ϕ(b∗ b).

Let
N = {a ∈ A; f (a∗ a) = 0}.

91
It is easy to see, using the above Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, that N is a
closed left ideal of A and the following positive definite inner product is
well-defined on the quotient space A/N:

< x + N, y + N >:=< x, y > .

Let Hϕ denote the Hilbert space completion of A/N under the above
inner product. The left regular representation A × A → A, (a, b) 7→ ab of A
on itself induces a bounded linear map A×A/N → A/N, (a, b+N) 7→ ab+N.
We denote its unique extension to Hϕ by

πϕ : A −→ L(Hϕ ).

The representation (πϕ , Hϕ ) is called the GNS representation defined by

the state ϕ. The state ϕ can be recovered from the representation (πϕ , Hϕ )
as a vector state as follows. Let x = πϕ (1). Then for all a in A,

ϕ(a) =< (πϕ a)(x), x > .

The representation (πϕ , Hϕ ) may not be faithful. It can be shown that

it is irreducible if and only if ϕ is a pure state [31]. To construct a faithful
representation, and hence an embedding of A into the algebra of bounded
operators on a Hilbert space, one first shows that there are enough pure
states on A. The proof of the following result is based on Hahn-Banach and
Krein-Milman theorems.

Lemma A.3. For any selfadjoint element a of A, there exists a pure state
ϕ on A such that ϕ(a) = kak.

Using the GNS representation associated to ϕ, we can then construct, for

any a ∈ A, an irreducible representation π of A such that kπ(a)k = |ϕ(a)| =
kak.
We can now prove the second theorem of Gelfand and Naimark.

Theorem A.4. Every C ∗ -algebra is isomorphic to a C ∗ -subalgebra of the

algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space.
P
Proof. Let π = ϕ∈S(A) πϕ denote the direct sum of all GNS representations
for all states of A. By the above remark π is faithful.

92
B Idempotents and finite projective modules
Let A be a unital algebra over a commutative ring k and let MA denote the
category of right A-modules. We assume our modules M are unitary in the
sense that the unit of the algebra acts as the identity of M. A morphism of
this category is a right A-module map f : M → N, i.e. f (ma) = f (m)a, for
all a in A and m in M.
A free module, indexed by a set I, is a module of the type
M
M = AI = A,
I

where the action of A is by component-wise right multiplication. Equiv-

alently, M is free if and only if there are elements mi ∈ M, i ∈P I, such
that any m ∈ M can be uniquely expressed as a finite sum m = i mi ai .
A module M is called finite (= finitely generated) if there are elements
m1 , m2 , · · · , mk in M such that every element of m ∈ M can be expressed
as m = m1 a1 + · · · + mk ak , for some ai ∈ A. Equivalently M is finite if there
is a surjective A-module map Ak → M for some integer k.
Free modules correspond to trivial vector bundles. To obtain a more
interesting class of modules we consider the class of projective modules. A
module P is called projective if it is a direct summand of a free module. That
is there exists a module Q such that

P ⊕ Q ≃ AI .

A module is said to be finite projective (= finitely generated projective),

if it is both finitely generated and projective.

Lemma B.1. Let P be an A-module. The following conditions on P are

equivalent:

1. P is projective.

2. Any surjection
f
M → P → 0,
splits in the category of A-modules.

93
 3. For all A-modules N and M and morphisms f, g with g surjective in
the following diagram, there exists a morphism f˜ such that the diagram
commutes:
P
}
}
∃f˜ }
} f
}
}
~} g 
N / M / 0
We say that f˜ is a lifting of f along g.

4. The functor
HomA (P, −) : MA → Mk
is exact in the sense that for any short exact sequence of A-modules

0 → R → S → T → 0,

the sequence of k-modules

0 → HomA (P, R) → HomA (P, S) → HomA (P, T ) → 0

is exact.

Example B.1. 1. Free modules are projective.

2. If A is a division ring, then any A-module is free, hence projective.

3. M = Z/nZ, n ≥ 2, is not projective as a Z-module.

4. A direct sum P = ⊕i Pi of modules is projective iff each summand Pi is

projective.

5. (idempotents) Let

e ∈ Mn (A) = EndA (An ), e2 = e,

be an idempotent. Multiplication by e defines a right A-module map

Pe : An → An , x 7→ ex.

94
 Let P = Im(Pe ) and Q = Ker(Pe ) be the image and kernel of Pe .
Then, using the idempotent condition e2 = e, we obtain a direct sum
decomposition
P ⊕ Q = An ,
which shows that both P and Q are projective modules. Moreover they
are obviously finitely generated. It follows that both P and Q are finite
projective modules.
Conversely, given any finite projective module P , let Q be a module
such that P ⊕ Q ≃ An for some integer n. Let e : An → An be the right
A-module map that corresponds to the projection map

(p, q) 7→ (p, 0).

Then it is easily seen that we have an isomorphism of A-modules

P ≃ Pe .

This shows that any finite projective module is obtained from an idem-
potent in some matrix algebra over A.
The idempotent e ∈ Mn (A) associated to a finite projective A-module P
depends of course on the choice of the splitting P ⊕Q ≃ An . Let P ⊕Q′ ≃ Am
be another splitting and f ∈ Mm (A) the corresponding idempotent. Define
the operators u ∈ HomA (Am , An ), v ∈ HomA (An , Am ) as compositions
∼ ∼
u : Am −→ P ⊕ Q −→ P −→ P ⊕ Q′ −→ An ,
∼ ∼
v : An −→ P ⊕ Q′ −→ P −→ P ⊕ Q −→ Am .
We have
uv = e, vu = f.
In general, two idempotents satisfying the above relations are called Murray-
von Neumann equivalent. Conversely it is easily seen that Murray-von Neu-
mann equivalent idempotents define isomorphic finite projective modules.
Defining finite projective modules through idempotents is certainly very
convenient since both finiteness and projectivity of the module are automatic
in this case. In some cases however this is not very useful. For example,
modules over quantum tori are directly defined and checking directly that
they are finite and projective is difficult. In this case the following method,

95
due to Rieffel [58], is very useful. (I am grateful to Henrique Bursztyn for
bringing this method to my attention).
Let A and B be unital algebras over a ground ring k. let X be an (A,B)-
bimodule endowed with k-bilinear pairings (“algebra-valued” inner prod-
ucts):
< −, − >A : X × X −→ A,
< −, − >B : X × X −→ B,
satisfying the “associativity” condition

< x, y >A z = x < y, z >B for all x, y, z in X,

and the “fullness” conditions:

< X, X >A = A and < X, X >B = B.

We claim that X is a finite projective left A-module. Let 1B be the unit

of B. By fullness of < −, − >B , we can find xi , yi in X, i = 1, · · · , k such
that
Xk
1B = < xi , yi >B .
i=1

Let ei , i = 1, · · · , k, be a basis for Ak . Define the map

P : Ak −→ X, P (ei ) = yi .

We claim that this map splits and hence X is finite and projective. Consider
the map X
I : X −→ Ak , I(x) = < x, xi >A ei .
i

We have
X X
P ◦ I(x) = < x, xi >A yi = x < xi , yi >B (by associativity)
i i
X
= x (since < xi , yi >B = 1B ).
i

96
C Equivalence of categories
There are at least two ways to compare categories: isomorphism and equiv-
alence. Isomorphism of categories is a very strong requirement and is hardly
useful. Equivalence of categories, on the other hand, is a much more flexible
concept and is very useful.
Categories A and B are said to be equivalent if there is a functor F : A →
B and a functor G : B → A, called a quasi-inverse of F , such that
F ◦ G ≃ 1B , G ◦ F ≃ 1A ,
where ≃ means isomorphism, or natural equivalence, of functors. This means,
for every X ∈ objA, Y ∈ objB,
F G(Y ) ∼ Y, and GF (X) ∼ X,
where ∼ denotes natural isomorphism of objects.
If F ◦ G = 1B and G ◦ F = 1A (equality of functors), then we say that
categories A and B are isomorphic, and F is an isomorphism.
Categories A and B are said to be antiequivalent if the opposite category
op
A is equivalent to B.
Note that a functor F : A → B is an isomorphism if and only if F :
objA → objB is 1-1, onto and F is full and faithful in the sense that for all
X, Y ∈ objA,
F : HomA (X, Y ) → HomB (F (X), F (Y ))
is 1-1 (faithful) and onto (full).
It is easy to see that an equivalence F : A → B is full and faithful, but it
may not be 1-1, or onto on the class of objects. As a result an equivalence
may have many quasi-inverses. The following concept clarifies the situation
with objects of equivalent categories.
A subcategory A′ of a category A is called skeletal if 1) the embedding
A′ → A is full, i.e.
HomA′ (X, Y ) = HomA (X, Y )
for all X, Y ∈ objA′ and 2) for any object X ∈ objA, there is a unique object
X ′ ∈ objA′ isomorphic to X. Any skeleton of A is equivalent to A and it is
not difficult to see that two categories A and B are equivalent if and only if
they have isomorphic skeletal subcategories A′ and B ′ .
In some examples, like the Gelfand-Naimark theorem, there is a canonical
choice for a quasi-inverse for a given equivalence functor F (F = C0 and

97
G = Ω). There are instances, however, like the Serre-Swan theorem, where
there is no canonical choice for a quasi-inverse. The following proposition
gives a necessary and sufficient condition for a functor F to be an equivalence
of categories. We leave its simple proof to the reader.

Proposition C.1. A functor F : A → B is an equivalence of categories if

and only if

a) F is full and faithful, and

b) Any object Y ∈ objB is isomorphic to an object of the form F (X), for

some X ∈ objA.

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