Gravity, non-commutative geometry, and the Wodzicki residue (Q493704)

In order to introduce the notion of scalar curvature in noncommutative geometry, it is important to identify the class of Laplace operators which minimize the second term of the heat kernel expansion. To this end, the computation of the Wodzicki residue plays a central role. The article under review considers the case of the 4-dimensional noncommutative torus with a conformally rescaled metric. The Wodzicki residue of the associated Laplacian is computed, and it is shown that in this case it fails to be minimal.