Compact \(\kappa \)-deformation and spectral triples (Q429226)

The \(\kappa\)-deformed Minkowski space is a well-known model for quantum (noncommutative ) space-time, with the natural symmetry coming from the (co)-action of the so-called quantum Poincaré group. For \(n \geq 2\), \(\kappa >0\), the `coordinate-algebra' of the \(n\)-dimensional \(\kappa\)-deformed Minkowski space is generated by self-adjoint elements \(x_j\), \(j=0,1,2,\dots,n-1\), satisfying \[ [x_0,x_j]=\frac{i}{\kappa} x_j,~~~[x_j,x_k]=0,~~j,k=1,\dots,n-1. \] For \(n=2\), this corresponds to the semi-direct product group \(G_\kappa:=\mathbb R \times_\alpha \mathbb R\) with the action \(\alpha\) of \(\mathbb R\) on \(\mathbb R\) given by \(\alpha(\omega) t=e^{-\frac{\omega}{\kappa}}t\), \(t \in \mathbb R\). It is an interesting open problem to construct spectral triples in the sense of Connes on such deformed Minkowski spaces. The authors take up a related, but technically slightly less challenging problem by replacing the noncompact \(\kappa\)-Minkowski spaces (in the case of dimension \(n=2\) only) by compact analogues. More precisely, they consider discrete subgroups of \(G_\kappa\) of the form \(B_a \times_{\alpha_a} \mathbb Z\), where \(a >0\), \(a \neq 1\), \(B_a\) is the additive subgroup of \(\mathbb R\) generated by \(a^m\) for \(m \in \mathbb Z\) and \(\alpha_a(m)(b)=a^mb,\) \(m \in \mathbb Z\), \(b \in B_a\). For \(a\) being a positive integer \(m>1\), this group is the well-known Baumslag-Solitar group \(BS(1,m)\). The authors study the \(C^*\)-algebras \(C^*(B_a \times_{\alpha_a} Z)\) in detail and construct finitely summable spectral triples on them. In fact, it is known to be impossible to construct finitely summable spectral triples on these group \(C^*\)-algebas for a representation quasi-equivalent to the left regular representation. The authors bypass this obstruction by going to different representations using the underlying dynamical systems. However, it must be noted that most of these finitely summable spectral triples lack the crucial property of having nontrivial Chern characters, and thus are not so interesting from a \(K\)-theoretic point of view.