noncommutative topology
1 Noncommutative Topology
Noncommutative topology is basically the theory of -algebras
(http://planetmath.org/CAlgebra). But why the name noncommutative topology then?
It turns out that commutative -algebras andlocally compact Hausdorff spaces
(http://planetmath.org/LocallyCompactHausdorffSpace) are one and the same ”thing” (this will be explained further ahead). Every commutative -algebra corresponds to a locally compact Hausdorff space and vice-versa and there is a correspondence between topological properties of spaces and -algebraic properties (see the noncommutative topology dictionary below).
The -algebraic properties and concepts are of course present in noncommutative -algebras too. Thus, although noncommutative -algebras cannot be associated with ”standard” topological spaces
, all the topological/ concepts are present. For this reason, this of mathematics was given the name ”noncommutative topology”.
In this , noncommutative topology can be seen as ”topology, but without spaces”.
2 The Commutative Case
Given a locally compact Hausdorff space , all of its topological properties are encoded in , the algebra of complex-valued continuous functions in that vanish at . Notice that is a commutative -algebra.
Conversely, given a commutative -algebra , the Gelfand transform provides an isomorphism between and , for a suitable locally compact Hausdorff space .
Furthermore, there is an equivalence (http://planetmath.org/EquivalenceOfCategories) between the category of locally compact Hausdorff spaces and the category of commutative -algebras. This is the content of the Gelfand-Naimark theorem
.
This equivalence of categories is one of the reasons for saying that locally compact Hausdorff spaces and commutative -algebras are the same thing. The other reason is the correspondence between topological and -algebraic properties, present in the following dictionary.
3 Noncommutative Topology Dictionary
We only provide a short list of easy-to-state concepts. Some correspondences of properties are technical and could not be easily stated here. Some of them originate new of ”noncommutative mathematics”, such as noncommutative measure theory.
3.1 Remarks:
1. Noncommutative topology can be considered as part of http://aux.planetphysics.us/files/books/167/Anatv1.pdfNonabelian Algebraic Topology (NAAT).
2.A specialized form of noncommutative topology is generally known asNoncommutative Geometry (http://planetmath.org/NoncommutativeGeometry) and has been introduced and developed by Professor Alain Connes (Field Medialist in 1982 and Crafoord Prize in 2001).