Covering and gluing of algebras and differential algebras (Q1971607)

In noncommutative geometry, the ``quantum spaces'' are usually defined globally. Unlike in classical geometry/topology, it is not necessarily straightforward to view a quantum space as being glued together from local pieces which are rather trivial. In this paper, the authors suggest a possible framework to handle this situation. Loosely speaking, the idea is to describe subspaces by ideals and to ``glue'' algebras along ideals, using a pullback (fibered product) construction. The authors refer to an earlier paper by \textit{R. J. Budzyński} and \textit{W. Kondracki}, Rep. Math. Phys. 37, No. 1-3, 365-385 (1996; Zbl 0886.58004)], where similar idea has been exploited in the setting of locally trivial (quantum) principal fiber bundles. It is true that this approach cannot reflect all aspects of topological nontriviality of noncommutative algebras. However, as the authors point out, there are many algebras (especially in the settings of quantum groups and quantum spaces) which have enough ideals to carry out this gluing procedure. First, the authors define the notion of coverings of an algebra, in terms of ideals of the algebra. Then they discuss the gluing procedure, a method of constructing an algebra possessing a certain covering. In the commutative case, these notions correspond to coverings of the underlying topological space by (closed) subsets, the ideals being the spaces of functions vanishing on the corresponding sets. These notions can also be applied to the differential algebras and differential ideals. Among the interests is the case when \(B\) is an algebra with covering and one wishes to discuss the differential algebra \(\Gamma(B)\) over \(B\). The differential algebra should also have a covering ``adapted'' to the covering of the underlying algebra. This is the notion of ``adapted differential algebra''. The second half of the paper is devoted to an example, illustrating the general construction methods described earlier. Two copies of a quantum disc, \(C(D_q)\), are glued together along their classical subspaces (circle). The resulting algebra turns out to be isomorphic to a certain Podleś sphere, \(S^2_{\mu c}\), \(c>0\). Moreover, by gluing together two \(U_{q^{1/2}}(\text{sl}_2)\)-covariant differential calculi on the quantum discs, one obtains a differential calculus on the quantum sphere.