The Non-Commutative Geometry of the Complex Classes of Topological Insulators

Abstract

Alain Connes' Non-Commutative Geometry program [Connes 1994] has been recently carried out [Prodan, Leung, Bellissard 2013, Prodan, Schulz-Baldes 2014] for the entire A- and AIII-symmetry classes of topological insulators, in the regime of strong disorder where the insulating gap is completely filled with dense localized spectrum. This is a short overview of these results, whose goal is to highlight the methods of Non-Commutative Geometry involved in these studies. The exposition proceeds gradually through the cyclic cohomology, quantized calculus with Fredholm-modules, local formulas for the odd and even Chern characters and index theorems for the odd and even Chern numbers. The characterization of the A- and AIII-symmetry classes in the presence of strong disorder and magnetic fields emerges as a natural application of these tools.