Homogeneous manifolds from noncommutative measure spaces (Q2267474)

The authors study the metric geometry of homogeneous spaces \({\mathcal O}\) of the unitary group \({\mathcal U}_{\mathcal M}\) of a finite von Neumann algebra \({\mathcal M}\), endowed with a faithful normal trace \(\tau\). The metric on \({\mathcal O}\) is a Finsler quotient metric induced by the \(p\)-norms of \(\tau\), \(||x||_p\equiv\tau(|x|^p)^{1/p}\), \(p\geq 1\). There are two main results in this paper. The first states that \({\mathcal U}_{\mathcal M}\) carries on a rectifiable distance \(d_p\) induced by measuring the length of curves with the \(p\)-norm. This distance coincides with the one \(\dot d_p\) induced by the quotient group structure of \({\mathcal O}\) and metrizing the quotient topology. As a by-product they prove that \(({\mathcal O},\dot d_p)\) is a complete path-metric space. The second main result is the existence of metric geodesics, or curves of minimal length, in \({\mathcal O}\). The paper, after a detailed introduction, splits in to four more sections. 2. Definitions and background. 3. Metric structure of \({\mathcal U}_{\mathcal M}\). 4. Rectifiable distance in \({\mathcal O}\). 5. Minimality of geodesics in \({\mathcal O}\). Remark. Let us emphasize that this interesting paper intersects a very important subject in the actual research in noncommutative geometry. Here, may be useful to recall that a finite von Neumann algebra \({\mathcal M}\) is one which is the direct integral of finite factors, i.e., \({\mathcal M}=\int_{X}^{\oplus}{\mathcal M}_x\,d\mu(x)\), where \((X,\mu)\) is a Borel space equipped with a countable additive measure \(\mu\), and such that each \({\mathcal M}_x\) is a finite factor for \(x\in X\), i.e., a von Neumann algebra with center consisting only of scalar operators and such that projection \(1\) is finite. This restriction, considered in this paper, to finite von Neumann algebras is very important since it is well known that every von Neumann algebra can be written uniquely as sum of three types (I, II, III), and von Neumann algebras of finite type are properly contained in the set of the first two types. In this respect, it is useful to relate this paper to variational calculus and variational PDE's in the category \({\mathfrak Q}\) of quantum manifolds in the sense introduced by the reviewer of this paper. There the fundamental algebras are quantum algebras. These noncommutative algebras contain, as particular cases, von Neumann algebras, too. Then, one can see that results considered in this paper can be generalized to the category \({\mathfrak Q}\). In fact, existence theorems for quantum PDEs in the category \({\mathfrak Q}\), require that some regularity conditions should be satisfied. Between these conditions one is that the quantum algebras have Noetherian centers. The set of such quantum algebras properly contains von Neumann algebras of finite type.