arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Matthias Ludewig.
We show that quantum cellular automata naturally form the degree-zero part of a coarse homology theory. The recent result of Ji and Yang that the space of QCA forms an Omega-spectrum in the sense of algebraic topology is a direct consequence of the formal properties of coarse homology theories.
Adjustments are additional structures on crossed modules of Lie groups, serving as a tool in higher gauge theory to circumvent the fake flatness of connections on 2-bundles. In this article, we investigate the existence and classification of adjustments, as well as their covariance under weak equivalences. Our approach is based on a differentiation/integration correspondence with an infinitesimal version of adjustments on the associated crossed module of Lie algebras, which we then study using Lie algebra techniques. Our main result is that infinitesimal adjustments exist if and only if the Kassel-Loday classof the crossed module lies in the image of the (Lie algebraic) Chern-Weil homomorphism.
When trying to cast the free fermion in the framework of functorial field theory, its chiral anomaly manifests in the fact that it assigns the determinant of the Dirac operator to a top-dimensional closed spin manifold, which is not a number as expected, but an element of a complex line. In functorial field theory language, this means that the theory is twisted, which gives rise to an anomaly theory. In this paper, we give a detailed construction of this anomaly theory, as a functor that sends manifolds to infinite-dimensional Clifford algebras and bordisms to bimodules.
We pursue an old conjecture of John Roe about the algebraic K-theory of the algebra of finite propagation, locally trace-class operators, namely that transgressing the algebraic coarse character map on this algebra to a Higson dominated corona coincides with the usual Chern character on the corona.
Inspired by parallel developments in coarse geometry in mathematics and exact macroscopic quantization in physics, we present a family of general trace formulae which are universally quantized and depend only on large-scale geometric features of the input data. They generalize, to arbitrary dimensions, formulas found by Roe in his partitioned manifold index theorem, as well as the Kubo and Kitaev formulae for 2D Hall conductance used in physics.
We describe a symmetry breaking construction in coarse geometry which allows to obtain information about equivariant coarse homology classes by restriction to smaller groups and spaces. In the case of equivariant coarse $K$-homology theory we give an analytic interpretation of this construction. As a consequence we obtain applications to the spectral theory of invariant differential operators.
We show that topological phases include disordered materials if the underlying invariant is interpreted as originating from coarse geometry. This coarse geometric framework, grounded in physical principles, offers a natural setting for the bulk-boundary correspondence, reproduces physical knowledge, and leads to an efficient and tractable numerical approach for calculating invariants. As a showcase, we give a detailed discussion of the framework for three-dimensional systems with time-reversal symmetry. We numerically reproduce the known disorder-free phase diagram of a tunable, effective tight-binding model and analyze the evolution of the topological phase under disorder.
We interpret the coarse symbol and index class of a Callias type Dirac operator $D+Ψ$ on a manifold $M$ as a pairing between the coarse symbol and index classes associated to $D$ and K-theory classes of the coarse corona of $M$ or $M$ itself determined by $Ψ$. Local positivity of $D$ and local invertibility of $Ψ$ are incorporated in terms of support conditions on the $K$-theoretic level.
We give a construction of the spinor bundle of the loop space of a string manifold together with its fusion product, inspired by ideas from Stolz and Teichner. The spinor bundle is a super bimodule bundle for a bundle of Clifford von Neumann algebras over the free path space, and the fusion product is defined using Connes fusion of such bimodules. As the main result, we prove that a spinor bundle with fusion product on a manifold X exists if and only X admits a string structure.
In this paper, we study Lagrangian correspondences between Hilbert spaces. A main focus is the question when the composition of two Lagrangian correspondences is again Lagrangian. Our answer leads in particular to a well-defined composition law in a category of Lagrangian correspondences respecting given polarizations of the Hilbert spaces involved. As an application, we construct a functorial field theory on geometric spin manifolds with values in this category of Lagrangian correspondences, which can be viewed as a formal Wick rotation of the theory associated to a free fermionic particle in a curved spacetime.
We set up a framework of 2-Hilbert bundles, which allows to rigorously define the "stringor bundle", a higher differential geometric object anticipated by Stolz and Teichner in an unpublished preprint about 20 years ago. Our framework includes an associated bundle construction, allowing us to associate a 2-Hilbert bundle with a principal 2-bundle and a unitary representation of its structure 2-group. We prove that the Stolz-Teichner stringor bundle is canonically isomorphic to the 2-Hilbert bundle obtained from applying our associated bundle construction to a string structure on a manifold and the stringor representation of the string 2-group that we discovered in earlier work. This establishes a perfect analogy to spin manifolds, representations of the spin groups, and spinor bundles.
We construct a Clifford algebra bundle formed from the tangent bundle of the smooth loop space of a Riemannian manifold, which is a bundle of super von Neumann algebras on the loop space. We show that this bundle is in general non-trivial, more precisely that its triviality is obstructed by the transgressions of the second Stiefel-Whitney class and the first (fractional) Pontrjagin class of the manifold.
In this article, we give an overview over recent developments in the mathematical treatment of topological insulators using coarse geometry.
We construct a representation of the string 2-group on a 2-vector space, aiming to establish it as the categorification of the spinor representation. Our model for 2-vector spaces is based on the Morita bicategory of von Neumann algebras, and we specifically represent the string 2-group on the hyperfinite type III_1 factor.
We demonstrate how integer quantization of Hall conductance arises from the large-scale geometry of the sample. Specifically, the Hall conductance is a higher-trace pairing of the Fermi projection with a coarse cohomology class coming from a partition of the geometric sample, whose integrality is proved.
We give a very simple construction of the string 2-group as a strict Fréchet Lie 2-group. The corresponding crossed module is defined using the conjugation action of the loop group on its central extension, which drastically simplifies several constructions previously given in the literature. More generally, we construct strict 2-group extensions for a Lie group from a central extension of its based loop group, under the assumption that this central extension is disjoint commutative. We show in particular that this condition is automatic in the case that the Lie group is semisimple and simply connected.
We develop a ready-to-use comprehensive theory for (super) 2-vector bundles over smooth manifolds. It is based on the bicategory of (super) algebras, bimodules, and intertwiners as a model for 2-vector spaces. We discuss symmetric monoidal structures and the corresponding notions of dualizability, and we derive a classification in terms of Cech cohomology with values in a crossed module. One important feature of our 2-vector bundles is that they contain bundle gerbes as well as ordinary algebra bundles as full sub-bicategories, and hence provide a unifying framework for these so far distinct objects. We provide several examples of isomorphisms between bundle gerbes and algebra bundles, coming from representation theory, twisted K-theory, and spin geometry.
On a flat surface, the Landau operator, or quantum Hall Hamiltonian, has spectrum a discrete set of infinitely degenerate Landau levels. We consider surfaces with asymptotically constant curvature away from a possibly non-compact submanifold, the helicoid being our main example. The Landau levels remain isolated, provided the spectrum is considered in an appropriate Hilbert module over the Roe algebra of the surface delocalized away from the submanifold. Delocalized coarse indices may then be assigned to them. As an application, we prove that Landau operators on helical surfaces have no spectral gaps above the lowest Landau level.