Universal extension and excision for topological algebras (Q5935575)

A central issue in cyclic homology is the excision problem: when does an extension \(0\to I\to A\to B\to 0\) of algebras give rise to a long exact sequence of cyclic (co)homology groups? It was shown by \textit{J. Cuntz} and \textit{D. Quillen} [Invent. Math. 127, No. 1, 67-98 (1997; Zbl 0889.46054)] that excision holds in bivariant periodic cyclic cohomology of abstract algebras for arbitrary extensions. Their method of proof was then adapted by \textit{J. Cuntz} [Fields Inst. Commun. 17, 43-53 (1997; Zbl 0890.18006)] to the case of \(m\)-algebras, i.e., projective limits of Banach algebras. He established excision in continuous bivariant periodic cyclic cohomology for extensions of \(m\)-algebras which possess a bounded linear section. In the present paper, the result of Cuntz is generalized to the case of arbitrary locally convex algebras with jointly continuous multiplication, called \(c\)-algebras. In the proof of the excision theorems an important role is played by the class of universal linear split extensions in the considered category of algebras. For abstract algebras this class is given by the extensions \(0\to IA\to TA\to A\to 0\), where \(A\) is a complex algebra and \(TA\) is the nonunital tensor algebra over the underlying complex vector space of \(A\). The main contribution of the present paper is the construction of the corresponding class of extensions for \(c\)-algebras. This is done by constructing an adjoint functor to the forgetful functor from \(c\)-algebras to locally convex vector spaces which plays the role of the tensor algebra functor in the locally convex setting. After this the proof of excision by \textit{J. Cuntz} [loc. cit.] carries directly over to \(c\)-algebras.