English

A finite dimensional approach to the strong Novikov conjecture

K-Theory and Homology 2014-10-01 v4 Algebraic Topology Group Theory Operator Algebras

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce an approach to the (strong) Novikov conjecture based on continuous families of finite dimensional representations: this is partly inspired by ideas of Lusztig using the Atiyah-Singer families index theorem, and partly by Carlsson's deformation KK--theory. Using this approach, we give new proofs of the strong Novikov conjecture in several interesting cases, including crystallographic groups and surface groups. The method presented here is relatively accessible compared with other proofs of the Novikov conjecture, and also yields some information about the KK--theory and cohomology of representation spaces.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1203.6168,
  title  = {A finite dimensional approach to the strong Novikov conjecture},
  author = {Daniel Ramras and Rufus Willett and Guoliang Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1203.6168},
  year   = {2014}
}