Trace formula in noncommutative geometry and the zeros of the Riemann zeta function (Q1291797)

The idea that the zeros of the Riemann zeta function should have a spectral interpretation goes back perhaps to G. Pólya and D. Hilbert. The adèles came into the picture with J. Tate's thesis [which appeared in \textit{J. W. S. Cassels} and \textit{A. Fröhlich}; Algebraic number theory, London and New York: Academic Press (1967; Zbl 0153.07403)]. In 1978/79 Paul Cohen [unpublished] told people at the special year on the Riemann zeta-function at Institute Mittag-Leffler that one should consider the idéles acting on the adèles. Now in 2000 a similar special year at IAS, Princeton has ended and the Riemann Hypothesis is still open as far as the reviewer knows. The paper under review provides some interesting ideas. In particular, it reduces the Riemann Hypothesis to the proof of a Selberg-type trace formula and eliminates the parameter \(\delta\) of the author's previous paper [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. I 323, 1231--1236 (1996; Zbl 0864.46042)]. The sections of the paper are: I. Quantum chaos and the hypothetical Riemann flow. II. Algebraic geometry and global fields of non-zero characteristic. III. Spectral interpretation of critical zeros. IV. The distribution trace formula for flows on manifolds. V. The action \((\lambda,x)\longrightarrow \lambda x\) of \(K^{*}\) on a local field \(K\). VI. The global case, and the formal trace computation. VII. Proof of the trace formula in the S-local case. VIII. The trace formula in the global case, and elimination of \(\delta\). There are also 3 appendices. For connections with quantum chaos, see also \textit{N. Katz} and \textit{P. Sarnak} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 36, 1--26 (1999; Zbl 0921.11047)], \textit{D. A. Hejhal} (ed.), \textit{J. Friedman} (ed.), \textit{M. C. Gutzwiller} (ed.), and \textit{A. M. Odlyzko} (ed.) [Emerging applications of number theory. The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications 109. New York, Springer (1999; Zbl 0919.00047)], and the MSRI, Berkeley web site \url{http://www.msri.org/} which has movies and transparencies from talks from the various workshops in 1999 on random matrices.