The Novikov conjecture and geometry of Banach spaces (Q691542)

A real Banach space \(X\) has Property H if there exists an increasing sequence of finite-dimensional subspaces \(\{V_n\}\) of \(X\) whose union \(V\) is dense in \(X\), an increasing sequence of finite-dimensional subspaces \(\{W_n\}\) of a real Hilbert space with union \(W\), and a uniformly continuous map \(\psi\) from the unit sphere of \(V\) to the unit sphere of \(W\) with the property that for each \(n\), the map \(\psi\) restricts to a degree one map from the unit sphere of \(V_n\) onto the unit sphere of \(W_n\). Among the Banach spaces possessing Property H are \(\ell^p(\mathbb{N})\) for \(p \geq 1\) and the Banach space of all Schatten \(p\)-class operators on a Hilbert space. The authors prove that if \(\Gamma\) is a countable discrete group that admits a course embedding into a Banach space with Property H and \(A\) is a \(\Gamma-C^*\)-algebra, then the strong Novikov conjecture with coefficients in \(A\) holds for \(\Gamma\). The researchers also prove that if one weakens the conditions of Property H to require that the map \(\psi\) has nonzero degree, then the rational strong Novikov conjecture with coefficients in \(A\) holds for \(\Gamma\). It is known that every countable discrete group coarsely embeds into the Banach space \(C_0\) of real sequences that are convergent to \(0\), so a proof that \(C_0\) has (rational) Property H would imply the (rational) strong Novikov conjecture in general.