The geometry of determinant line bundles in noncommutative geometry (Q734816)

\textit{A. Connes} and \textit{H. Moscovici} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 5, No. 2, 174--243 (1995; Zbl 0960.46048)] formulated and proved a far-reaching local index theorem for spectral triples and introduced the correct definition of dimension in the noncommutative setting, which is called the dimension spectrum. This article aims to understand the stability of the dimension spectrum for families of spectral triples and its implications on the existence of geometric structures on the determinant line bundle such as the Quillen metric and the determinant section. The authors are concerned with the study of the geometry of determinant line bundles associated to families of spectral triples parametrized by the moduli space of gauge equivalence classes of Hermitian connections on a Hermitian finite projective module. Given a spectral triple \((\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{H}, D)\), a finite projective module \(E\) over \(\mathcal{A}\), a Hermitian structure on \(E\) and any Hermitian connection \(\nabla\) on \(E\), a basic stability result implies that \((\text{End}_{\mathcal{A}} (E), E\otimes_{\mathcal{A}} \mathcal{H}, D_{e, \nabla})\) is a spectral triple. The space of all Hermitian connections on \(E\) is an affine space \(\mathcal{C}_E\), and the gauge group \(\mathcal{G}\) is defined to be a Lie subgroup of the group \(\text{Aut}_{\mathcal{A}} (E)\) of invertible elements in \(\text{End}_{\mathcal{A}} (E)\) such that \(\mathcal{G}\) acts smoothly and freely on \(\mathcal{C}_E\). Analogous to the classical case, the authors define the determinant line bundle \(\mathcal{L}\) of the index bundle for this family of spectral triples, which is a line bundle on the moduli space \(\mathcal{C}_E / \mathcal{G}\) of gauge equivalence classes of Hermitian connections on \(E\). In order to state the hypotheses required to define the Quillen metric and the determinant section of \(\mathcal{L}\), we require the spectral triple \((\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{H}, D)\) to be regular with simple dimension spectrum and zero is not in the dimension spectrum. These are precisely the same assumptions made by \textit{A. Connes} and \textit{A. H. Chamseddine} [J. Geom. Phys. 57, No.~1, 1--21 (2006; Zbl 1105.58004)] in their work on inner fluctuations of spectral actions, except that we do not need the assumption that zero is not in the spectrum of \(D\). Another technical result proved here is the stability property for regular spectral triples \((\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{H}, D)\), which says that \((\text{End}_{\mathcal{A}} (E), E\otimes_{\mathcal{A}} \mathcal{H}, D_{e, \nabla})\) is again a regular spectral triple with simple dimension spectrum for any Hermitian structure on \(E\) and any Hermitian connection \(\nabla\) on \(E\). The authors give an explicit calculation of the Quillen metric and determinant section of the determinant line bundle of the index bundle for the family of spectral triples on the noncommutative torus parametrized by the moduli space of flat Yang-Mills connections on a free module of rank one. These are expressed in terms of the theta and eta functions on the moduli space. \textit{D. Perrot} [Lett. Math. Phys. 50, No.~2, 133--144 (1999; Zbl 1079.58506)] has studied a \(K\)-theoretic index theorem for families of spectral triples parametrized by the moduli space of gauge equivalence classes of Hermitian connections on \(E\). The authors investigate the same theorem without the restrictive assumption that the gauge group \(\mathcal{G}\) is contained in the unitary group of \(\mathcal{A}\). The construction is systematic and clear.