Algebraic braided model of the affine line and difference calculus on a topological space (Q699218)

Let \(A=\mathcal{D}^{0}(x)\) be the \(k\)-algebra of functions \(f(x):\mathbb{Z} \rightarrow k\) (\(k\) an arbitrary commutative ring) which are constant when \(x \) goes to \(+\infty \) or \(-\infty \), and \(\Omega ^{1}(A)=\mathcal{D}^{1}(x)\) the left ideal of\(\;A\) of the functions going to \(0\) in both infinities. Following the ideas of \textit{M. Karoubi} [Contemp. Math. 279, 177-193 (2001; Zbl 0984.55005)], a braiding on the differential graded algebra \(\mathcal{D}^{\ast }(x)=\mathcal{D}^{0}(x)\oplus \mathcal{D}^{1}(x)\) is defined, which allows to associate to any simplicial set \(X\)\ a braided differential graded algebra \(\mathcal{D}^{\ast }(X)\), verifying \(H^{\ast }( \mathcal{D}^{\ast }(X))=H^{\ast }(X,k)\) and which is the reduced product of the cosimplicial \(k\)-module of usual cochains on \(X\) and the simplicial differential graded algebra \(\mathcal{D}^{\ast }(\Delta _{\cdot })\) defined as the equalizer of the two morphisms \[ \bigotimes_i \mathcal{D} ^{\ast }(x_{0},\ldots ,x_{i},\ldots ,x_{r})\rightrightarrows \bigotimes_{i<j}\mathcal{D}^{\ast }(x_{0},\ldots ,x_{i},\ldots ,x_{j},\ldots ,x_{r}) \] obtained by putting \(x_{i}\) or \(x_{j}\) equal to \(-\infty \), and where \( \mathcal{D}^{\ast }(x_{0},\ldots ,x_{r})\) denotes the graded tensor product \( \mathcal{D}^{\ast }(x_{0})\otimes \cdots \otimes \mathcal{D}^{\ast }(x_{r})\) . This type of difference calculus can also be applied to any topological space. So if \(X\) is a nilpotent simplicial set of finite type and \(k=\mathbb{Z}\) , the \(p\)-homotopy type of \(X\) can be read from the braiding of \(\mathcal{D} ^{\ast }(x)\) and so the author recovers in a purely algebraic way the integral cohomology, Steenrod operations and homotopy groups from this braiding.