A groupoid approach to pseudodifferential operators

Abstract

We give an algebraic/geometric characterization of the classical pseudodifferential operators on a smooth manifold in terms of the tangent groupoid and its natural $\mathbb{R}^\times_+$-action. Specifically, we show that a properly supported semiregular distribution on $M\times M$ is the Schwartz kernel of a classical pseudodifferential operator if and only if it extends to a smooth family of distributions on the range fibres of the tangent groupoid which is homogeneous for the $\mathbb{R}^\times_+$-action modulo smooth functions. Moreover, we show that the basic properties of pseudodifferential operators can be proven directly from this characterization. Finally, we show that with the appropriate generalization of the tangent bundle, the same definition applies without change to define pseudodifferential calculi on arbitrary filtered manifolds, in particular the Heisenberg calculus.