Universal rings arising in geometry and group theory

This is a survey article on classical groups (over arbitrary division rings) and their geometries.

For an orbifold X which is the quotient of a manifold Y by a finite group G we construct a noncommutative ring with an action of G such that the orbifold cohomology of X as defined in math.AG/0004129 by Chen and Ruan is the G invariant part. In the case thar Y is S^n for a surface S with trivial canonical class we prove that (a small modification of) the orbifold cohomology of X is naturally isomorphic to the cohomology ring of the Hilbert scheme of n points on S computed in ...

Quantum symmetric algebras (or noncommutative polynomial rings) arise in many places in mathematics. In this article we find the multiplicative structure of their Hochschild cohomology when the coefficients are in an arbitrary bimodule algebra. When this bimodule algebra is a finite group extension (under a diagonal action) of a quantum symmetric algebra, we give explicitly the graded vector space structure. This yields a complete description of the Hochschild cohomology ring...

We prove that the integral cohomology ring modulo torsion $H^*(\mathrm{Sym}^n X;\mathbb{Z})/\mathrm{Tor}$ for the symmetric product of a connected CW-complex $X$ of finite homology type is a functor of $H^*(X;\mathbb{Z})/\mathrm{Tor}$ (see Theorem 1). Moreover, we give an explicit description of this functor. We also consider the important particular case when $X$ is a compact Riemann surface $M^2_g$ of genus $g$. There is a famous theorem of Macdonald of 1962, which gives ...

Let $\Theta$ be a variety of algebras. In every $\Theta$ and every algebra $H$ from $\Theta$ one can consider algebraic geometry in $\Theta$ over $H$. We consider also a special categorical invariant $K_\Theta (H)$ of this geometry. The classical algebraic geometry deals with the variety $\Theta=Com-P$ of all associative and commutative algebras over the ground field of constants $P$. An algebra $H$ in this setting is an extension of the ground field $P$. Geometry in groups i...

It is well-known that the homology of the classifying space of the unitary group is isomorphic to the ring of symmetric functions, Symm. We offer the cohomology of the loop space of the suspension of the infinite complex projective space as a topological model for the ring of quasisymmetric functions, QSymm. We exploit standard results from topology to shed light on some of the algebraic properties of QSymm. In particular, we reprove the Ditters conjecture. We investigate a p...

In the past 15 years a study of ``noncommutative projective geometry'' has flourished. By using and generalizing techniques of commutative projective geometry, one can study certain noncommutative graded rings and obtain results for which no purely algebraic proof is known. For instance, noncommutative graded domains of quadratic growth, or ``noncommutative curves,'' have now been classified by geometric data and these rings must be noetherian. Rings of cubic growth, or ``non...

In this survey paper we study the relationships between the coarse moduli space which parameterizes the finite dimensional linear representations of an associative alegebra, the non commutative hilbert scheme and the affine scheme which is the spectrum of the abelianization of algebra of the divided powers. In particular we will show a map which specialize to the Hlibert - Chow morphism when the associative algebra is commutative. The extension to the positive characteristic ...

We combine our results on symmetric products and second quantization with our description of discrete torsion in order to explain the ring structure of the cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points on a K3 surface. This is achieved in terms of an essentially unique symmetric group Frobenius algebra twisted by a specific discrete torsion. This twist is realized in form of a tensor product with a twisted group algebra that is defined by a discrete torsion cocycle. We furthermo...

Properties of higher characters are developed and applied to symmetric products and Frobenius algebras. A `constructive' proof of the Gel'fand-Kolmogorov theorem is given. Generalisations of that theorem and the Nullstellensatz to symmetric products are discussed.Applications to the theory of multi-symmetric functions are also discussed. It is proved that the first three characters determine the Jordan algebra associated to a Frobenius algebra and as a corollary one obtains t...