The local spectrum of the Dirac operator for the universal cover of \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb R)\) (Q906309)

The authors study the \(K\)-theory and the local spectrum of the Dirac operator, defined on spinor fields on the universal cover of \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\). The authors denote by \(G\) the universal cover of \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\) and by \(\mathfrak{U} = C^{*}_{r}(G)\) the reduced C*-algebra of \(G\). First, in Section 2, the authors use the Fourier transform to show that \(\mathfrak{U}\) can be identified with the C*-algebra of operator-valued functions on a parameter space built from the discrete series and the principal series of \(G\) (Theorem 2.2). In Section 3, using the Plancherel formula for \(G\), established by \textit{L. Pukanszky} for \(\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\) [Math. Ann. 156, 96--143 (1964; Zbl 0171.33903)], the authors compute the local spectrum of the Dirac operator \(D\), defined on spinor fields on \(G\) (Theorem 3.2). Next, in Section 4, the authors give a direct computation of the \(K\)-theory of \(\mathfrak{U}\) (Theorems 4.2 and 4.3). In the last section, the authors compute the Dirac cohomology of \(D\) in the sense of \textit{J.-S. Huang} and \textit{P. Pandžić} [Dirac operators in representation theory. Basel: Birkhäuser (2006; Zbl 1103.22008)] (Theorem 5.2).