The ring structure of twisted equivariant $KK$-theory for noncompact Lie groups

Abstract

Let $G$ be a connected semisimple Lie group with its maximal compact subgroup $K$ being simply-connected. We show that the twisted equivariant $KK$-theory $KK^{\bullet}_{G}(G/K, \tau_G^G)$ of $G$ has a ring structure induced from the renowned ring structure of the twisted equivariant $K$-theory $K^{\bullet}_{K}(K, \tau_K^K)$ of a maximal compact subgroup $K$. We give a geometric description of representatives in $KK^{\bullet}_{G}(G/K, \tau_G^G)$ in terms of equivalence classes of certain equivariant correspondences and obtain an optimal set of generators of this ring. We also establish various properties of this ring under some additional hypotheses on $G$ and give an application to the quantization of $q$-Hamiltonian $G$-spaces in an appendix. We also suggest conjectures regarding the relation to positive energy representations of $LG$ that are induced from certain unitary representations of $G$ in the noncompact case.