Homotopy type of the space of finite propagation unitary operators on \(\mathbb{Z}\) (Q6042783)

On a complete Riemannian manifold \(X\) with the Dirac operator \(D\) acting on the spinor bundles \(S^\pm\) the wave operator \(\exp(\sqrt{-1}tD)\) acting with kernel \(k_t(x,y)\) has the support within a \(|t|\) neighborhood of the diagonal. The paper is devoted to studying the homotopy type of the space \(\mathcal U\) of finite propagation unitary operators on the Hilbert space \(\ell^2(\mathbb Z; \mathbb C)\). Let \(\mathcal U_L\) be the set of unitary propagations on \(\ell^2(\mathbb Z; \mathbb C)\) of propagation \(L\) endowed with the norm topology. Then \(\mathcal U = \bigcup_{L>0} \mathcal U_L\). The main results of the paper are Theorem 1.1 for computing the homotopy groups \[ \pi_i(\mathcal U)\cong \begin{cases} \ell^\infty(\mathbb Z)_S :=\{ \ell^\infty(\mathbb Z)/\{ a - Sa | a\in \ell^\infty(\mathbb Z)\} \} & \text{ if }i\text{ is odd,}\\ \mathbb Z & \text{ if }i\text{ is even}\end{cases} \] and Theorem 1.2 proving the homotopy equivalence \(\mathcal U \cong \mathbb Z \times BU(\infty) \times \prod^o_{n \geq 1}K( \ell^\infty(\mathbb Z)_S, 2n-1),\) where \(BU(\infty)\) is the classifying space of \(U(\infty) = \lim_{n \to \infty} U(n)\), and \(\prod_{n\geq 1}^o X_n= \lim_{N \to\infty} \prod_{n=1}^N X_n\).