Coarse assembly maps (Q2043495)

Coarse geometry was introduced in [\textit{N. Higson} and \textit{J. Roe}, Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 227, 227--254 (1995; Zbl 0957.58019)] and [\textit{J. Roe}, Lectures on coarse geometry. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2003; Zbl 1042.53027)] to study large scale properties of spaces by geometric, topological and analytic means. The coarse Baum-Connes conjecture, which combines all of these three aspects, plays a central role in the theory. It states that for proper metric spaces \(X\) with bounded geometry the assembly map from the coarsification of the locally finite \(K\)-homology of \(X\) to the \(K\)-theory of the coarse \(C^*\)-algebra of \(X\) is an isomorphism. The coarse Baum-Connes conjecture holds for spaces admitting uniform embeddings into Hilbert space [\textit{G. Yu}, Invent. Math. 139, No. 1, 201--240 (2000; Zbl 0956.19004)], which includes spaces of finite asymptotic dimension. This has important implications for geometric topology, notably the classical Novikov conjecture on the homotopy invariance of higher signatures. In [\textit{U. Bunke} and \textit{A. Engel}, Homotopy theory with bornological coarse spaces. Cham: Springer (2020; Zbl 1457.19001)] the authors of the present paper developed an approach to coarse geometry in the frame of abstract homotopy theory. The cited work introduces the notion of a coarse homology theory as a functor, satisfying a number of axioms, from the category of bornological coarse spaces to some stable \(\infty\)-category in the sense of [\textit{J. Lurie}, Higher topos theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (2009; Zbl 1175.18001)]. In the present paper the authors continue their line of thought by introducing and studying coarse assembly maps in terms of natural transformations between coarse homology theories. Among others they show that these maps are equivalences for bornological coarse spaces of weakly finite asymptotic dimension, generalizing the corresponding \(K\)-theoretic statement cited above. The contribution discussed here, which is very carefully written, gives considerable insight into the nature of the coarse assembly map from a general point of view.