Riemannian geometry of a discretized circle and torus (Q2024531)

One of the key notions in Riemannian geometry is that of a metric compatible and torsion-free linear connection as it provides relevant and physically significant geometric constructions such as the (Riemannian) curvature, the Ricci tensor, and the scalar curvature. Noncommutative generalisations thereof are certainly available and have become an area of active research in recent years. In most noncommutative approaches this amounts to the choice of a suitable bimodule of 1-forms by its desired properties as an implicit definition of a ``noncommutative differentiable structure'', a.k.a. ``noncommutative differential calculus''. The construction of these differential calculi has been one of the first steps that allowed the extension of the formalism of gauge theory to the realm of noncommutative spaces. In the paper under review, the authors use noncommutative differential calculus to study the Riemannian geometry of finite groups. More precisely, after some build-up in Section~2 (differential calculi over finite cyclic groups), Section~3 (bimodule linear connections), and Section~4 (metrics), they provide in Section~5 a complete classification of linear connections for the minimal noncommutative differential calculus over a finite cyclic group that are torsion-free and metric compatible (Theorem~5.4). Special emphasis is put on metrics that give rise to a Hilbert C*-module structure on the space of 1-forms. In Section~6, the authors explicitly compute the Riemannian curvature, the Ricci tensor, and the scalar curvature associated with such a torsion-free and metric compatible linear connection (Theorem~6.2, Theorem~6.5, and Theorem~6.6). Finally, in Section~7 they extend their computations of linear connections and compatible metrics to products of finite cyclic groups.