No abstract

Geometric property (T) was defined by Willett and Yu, first for sequences of graphs and later for more general discrete spaces. Increasing sequences of graphs with geometric property (T) are expanders, and they are examples of coarse spaces for which the maximal coarse Baum-Connes assembly map fails to be surjective. Here, we give a broader definition of bounded geometry for coarse spaces, which includes non-discrete spaces. We define a generalisation of geometric property (T) for this class of spaces and show that it is a coarse invariant. Additionally, we characterise it in terms of spectral properties of Laplacians. We investigate geometric property (T) for manifolds and warped systems.

We introduce and analyse a general notion of fundamental group for noncommutative spaces, described by differential graded algebras. For this we consider connections on finitely generated projective bimodules over differential graded algebras and show that the category of flat connections on such modules forms a Tannakian category. As such this category can be realised as the category of representations of an affine group scheme G, which in the classical case is (the pro-algebraic completion of) the usual fundamental group. This motivates us to define G to be the fundamental group of the noncommutative space under consideration. The needed assumptions on the differential graded algebra are rather mild and completely natural in the context of noncommutative differential geometry. We establish the appropriate functorial properties, homotopy and Morita invariance of this fundamental group. As an example we find that the fundamental group of the noncommutative torus can be described as the algebraic hull of the topological group (Z + θZ) 2 .

We show that a sequence of graphs with uniformly bounded vertex degrees, number of vertices going to infinity, and with geometric property (T) has many small cycles. We also show that when a small part of such a sequence of graphs with geometric property (T) is changed, it still has geometric property (T), provided that it is still an expander. We use this to give an example of a sequence of graphs with geometric property (T) that has large cycle-free balls.

We introduce and analyse a general notion of fundamental group for noncommutative spaces, described by differential graded algebras. For this we consider connections on finitely generated projective bimodules over differential graded algebras and show that the category of flat connections on such modules forms a Tannakian category. As such this category can be realised as the category of representations of an affine group scheme G, which in the classical case is (the pro-algebraic completion of) the usual fundamental group. This motivates us to define G to be the fundamental group of the noncommutative space under consideration. The needed assumptions on the differential graded algebra are rather mild and completely natural in the context of noncommutative differential geometry. We establish the appropriate functorial properties, homotopy and Morita invariance of this fundamental group. As an example we find that the fundamental group of the noncommutative torus can be described as the algebraic hull of the topological group $(\mathbb Z+\theta \mathbb Z)^{2}$ ( ℤ + 𝜃 ℤ ) 2 .