Topological K-theory of complex noncommutative spaces

TL;DR

This paper develops a topological K-theory for dg-categories over complex numbers, linking algebraic K-theory to cyclic homology and establishing foundational results for noncommutative geometry.

Contribution

It introduces a new definition of topological K-theory for dg-categories and proves the Chern character map descends to this invariant, connecting algebraic and topological invariants.

Findings

Topological K-theory of the unit dg-category is BU.

The Chern character map descends to topological K-theory.

The lattice conjecture holds for finite dimensional algebras.

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to give a definition of a topological K-theory for dg-categories over C and to prove that the Chern character map from algebraic K-theory to periodic cyclic homology descends naturally to this new invariant. This topological Chern map provides a natural candidate for the existence of a rational structure on the periodic cylic homology of a smooth proper dg-algebra, within the theory of noncommutative Hodge structures. The definition of topological K-theory consists in two steps : taking the topological realization of algebraic K-theory, and inverting the Bott element. The topological realization is the left Kan extension of the functor "space of complex points" to all simplicial presheaves over complex algebraic varieties. Our first main result states that the topological K-theory of the unit dg-category is the spectrum BU. For this we are led to prove a homotopical generalization of Deligne's cohomological proper descent, using Lurie's proper descent. The fact that the Chern character descends to topological K-theory is established by using Kassel's K\"unneth formula for periodic cyclic homology and once again the proper descent result. In the case of a dg-category of perfect complexes on a smooth scheme, we show that we recover the usual topological K-theory. Finally in the case of a finite dimensional associative algebra, we show that the lattice conjecture holds. This gives a formula for the periodic homology groups of a finite dimensional algebra in terms of the stack of projective modules of finite type.