Cyclic homology, comodules, and mixed complexes (Q1821852)

The main problem solved in this paper is the calculation of the cyclic homology \(HC_*(A\otimes A')\) of the tensor product of two algebras A and A' by a Künneth-type formula. To obtain this calculation, the algebra A is mapped to a so-called mixed complex (C(A),b,B) with anticommuting differentials b and B of degrees -1 and 1 respectively. The properties of mixed complexes are studied in detail. The shuffle map induces an isomorphism between \(HC_*(C(A)\otimes C(A'))\) and \(HC_*(C(A\otimes A'))\). This leads to the desired formula for \(HC_*(A\otimes A')\) which allows to explicitly calculate the cyclic homology of polynomial and Laurent polynomial rings over A, the Weyl algebra of polynomial differential operators over A and more. Under rather general assumptions the periodic cyclic homology even commutes with the tensor product: \(HC_*^{per}(A\otimes A')=HC_*^{per}(A)\otimes HC_*^{per}(A')\). This has a number of interesting applications. In an appendix a tensor product is introduced in the category of cyclic k-modules in the sense of Connes and the cyclic homology is recognized as derived functor of the tensor product.