Spectral triples for subshifts (Q906313)

The authors construct a spectral triple on algebras associated with subshifts, in particular subshifts of finite type, linearly recurrent and Sturmian subshifts. Although the construction is a special case of that of \textit{E. Christensen} and \textit{C. Ivan} [J. Oper. Theory 56, No. 1, 17--46 (2006; Zbl 1111.46052)], it has many special features, in particular, there exists a canonical choice for the Dirac operator. They discuss how the spectral triples extend to the noncommutative crossed product algebra (generated by the continuous functions over the subshift and the canonical unitary implementing the shift). The Dirac operator found is positive and hence carries no topological index information but could be used to construct noncommutative metric and distances. The authors study the properties of the distances (Connes metric) over the commutative algebra of locally constant functions over a subshift and find examples where the metric is bounded as well as examples where it is unbounded. They conjecture that this property extends to the noncommutative crossed product algebra.