Coarse obstructions to positive scalar curvature in noncompact arithmetic manifolds. (Q1609806)

Recall that a map \(f:X\to Y\) between metric spaces is called a coarse map if any set \(A\subset X\) of diameter \(r<\infty\) is sent to a set \(f( A) \subset Y\) of diameter no more than some number \(s( r) <\infty\) which depends only on \(r\), and the inverse image \(f^{-1}( B) \) is bounded for any bounded set \(B\subset Y\). Two coarse maps \(f,g:X\to Y\) are called coarsely equivalent if \(\sup_{x\in X}\{ d_{Y}( f( x) ,g( x) ) \} <\infty\), and two metrics \(d_{1},d_{2}\) on the same space \(M\) are called coarsely equivalent if there are coarse maps \(f:( M,d_{1}) \to( M,d_{2}) \) and \(g:( M,d_{2}) \to( M,d_{1}) \) such that \(g\circ f\) and \(f\circ g\) are coarsely equivalent to the identity maps on \(( M,d_{1}) \) and \(( M,d_{2}) \), respectively. In this paper, the author shows that the complete metrics of uniformly positive scalar curvature found, by Block and Weinberger, on a quotient \(M=\Gamma\backslash G/K\) of symmetric space for exactly the case of an arithmetic group \(\Gamma\) of \(\mathbb{Q} \)-rank exceeding \(2\), can never be coarsely equivalent to the canonical metric inherited from \(G\), where \(G\) is an irreducible semisimple Lie group, \(K\) is its maximal compact subgroup, and \(\Gamma\) is a lattice in \(G\). In the framework of the coarse C*-algebraic methods of Roe, the author identifies obstructions to the existence of coarse equivalence with the nonvanishing generalized coarse index of some spinor Dirac operator. For the above case of \(M=\Gamma\backslash G/K\), it is shown that if \(\Gamma^{\ast}\) is a torsion-free subgroup of \(\Gamma\) of finite index, then the manifold \(\Gamma^{\ast}\backslash G/K\) does not have any uniformly positive scalar curvature metric that is coarsely equivalent to the canonical metric inherited from \(G\).