Geometry of singular space (Q357203)

This is a survey paper about some concepts used in founding a new geometry through operator theory. Although the intention of the author is the disappearing of the classical spacetime, he reviews what he knows about the continuous spacetime and exhibits similarities between the continuous spacetime and discrete spacetime. First the author's intention is to construct geometry for Einstein equations and special holonomy groups. In the Calabi-Yau theorem the problem of describing some special manifolds (mainly Einstein) is reduced to some algebro-geometric problems which can be solved by algebraic means. The author proposes the concept of generalized manifold and special holonomy group derived from the Wick rotated Kerr metric where there is a non-trivial second-order differential operator that commutes with the Laplacian. This is a possible generalization of manifolds with special holonomy group. Next the author presents a generalization of the concept of Riemannian geometry using the Laplace operator. The construction of such a generalized Riemannian geometry (the operator geometry) is based on some conditions of the following kind: (i) On a compact manifold \(M\), a Riemannian metric gives rise to a measure. Then the volume-preserving diffeomorphisms can be defined as a Hilbert space \(H=L^2(M)\), and an algebra \(\mathcal{A}\) of unitary operators is defined by the group of measure-preserving diffeomorphisms. (ii) Within this Hilbert space \(H\), one has the subalgebra \(C\) of smooth functions that determines the differential structure of \(M\). The Laplacian \(L\) is defined on \(C\) and it is local. It is asked for \(L\) to be a linear functional which is symmetric, \(\langle L(\varphi),\psi\rangle =\langle\varphi, L(\psi)\rangle\) \(\forall \varphi,\psi \in C\). (iii) The inner product \(\langle\varphi,(-L)^s\varphi\rangle\) is positive on \(\{\varphi\in C: \langle\varphi,1\rangle =0\}\). The completions are Hilbert spaces called by \(H_s\). It is assumed that the embedding \(H_1\hookrightarrow H\) is compact. The space of Riemannian metrics can be considered as the orbit space of the space of triples \((H,C,L)\) mod \(\mathcal{A}\), the group of unitary operators defined by the group of measure-preserving diffeomorphisms. In order to obtain the standard properties from Riemannian geometry one makes some assumptions: (1) compatibility of multiplication with inner product; (2) the cone of positive functions is defined as \(H^+=\) the closure of \(\{\sum_{i=1}^k\rho_i^2: \rho_i\in C\}\); (3) the embeddings from \(H_s\) to \(H_{s-1}\) are compact operators for all \(s\); (4) if \(\lambda_k\) are the eigenvalues of \(-L\), it is assumed that \(\lambda_k\geq 0\) and \(\lim_{k\to \infty}k^{-{{2}\over{n}}}\lambda_k\) exists and depends only on \(\mathrm{Vol}(M)\). Then the author presents some aspects of the differential topology of the operator geometry, also some properties of the inner product on tangent spaces and Hodge theory; gauge groups, convergence of operator manifolds and Yang-Mills theory; generalized manifolds with special holonomy groups; maps, subspaces and sigma models; non-compact manifolds and discrete spaces. Finally, he presents some open problems. In the Appendix A the author clarifies and provides some general conditions for the operators to satisfy the hypothesis concerning the construction of generalized geometry. The following aspects are discussed: (A1) Tangent space and the spectrum of \(C\), (A2) Eigenvalues by methods of variational calculus, (A3) Weak maximum principle for heat equation, (A4) Sobolev inequality and analytic dimension, (A5) Compactness, (A6) Heat equations, (A7) Hodge theory for differential forms, (A8) Star operators, (A9) Examples.