Riemannian curvature of the noncommutative 3-sphere

Abstract

In order to investigate to what extent the calculus of classical (pseudo-)Riemannian manifolds can be extended to a noncommutative setting, we introduce pseudo-Riemannian calculi of modules over noncommutative algebras. In this framework, it is possible to prove an analogue of Levi-Civita’s theorem, which states that there exists at most one torsion-free and metric connection for a given (metric) module, satisfying the requirements of a real metric calculus. Furthermore, the corresponding curvature operator has the same symmetry properties as the classical Riemannian curvature. As our main motivating example, we consider a pseudo-Riemannian calculus over the noncommutative 3-sphere and explicitly determine the torsion-free and metric connection, as well as the curvature operator together with its scalar curvature.