Controlled $K$-theory and $K$-homology

Abstract

Motivated by the idea that our access to spacetime is limited by the resolution of our measuring device, we give a new description of $K$-homology with a finite resolution. G. Yu introduced a $C^{\ast }$-algebra, known as the localization algebra, and showed that for any finite-dimensional simplicial complex $X$ endowed with the spherical metric, the $K$-theory of the localization algebra is isomorphic to the $K$-homology of $X$. We give a coarse graining version of this theorem using controlled $K$-theory (also known as quantitative $K$-theory). Namely, instead of considering families of operators whose propagations converge to $0$ as done in the definition of the localization algebra, we prove that for each dimension $n$, there exists a threshold $r_n>0$ such that the $K$-homology of an $n$-dimensional finite simplicial complex $X$ is isomorphic to a certain group of equivalence classes of operators whose propagation is less than $r_n$. This picture also enables us to represent any element in the $K$-homology group $K_{\ast }(X)$ by a finite matrix for a finite simplicial complex $X$.