Homology of Steinberg algebras

Abstract

We study homological invariants of the Steinberg algebra $\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G})$ of an ample groupoid $\mathcal{G}$ over a commutative ring $k$. For $\mathcal{G}$ principal or Hausdorff with ${\mathcal{G}}^{\rm{Iso}}\setminus{\mathcal{G}}^{(0)}$ discrete, we compute Hochschild and cyclic homology of $\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G})$ in terms of groupoid homology. For any ample Hausdorff groupoid $\mathcal{G}$, we find that $H_*(\mathcal{G})$ is a direct summand of $HH_*(\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G}))$; using this and the Dennis trace we obtain a map $\overline{D}_*:K_*(\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G}))\to H_n(\mathcal{G},k)$. We study this map when $\mathcal{G}$ is the (twisted) Exel-Pardo groupoid associated to a self-similar action of a group $G$ on a graph, and compute $HH_*(\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G}))$ and $H_*(\mathcal{G},k)$ in terms of the homology of $G$, and the $K$-theory of $\mathcal{A}_k(\mathcal{G})$ in terms of that of $k[G]$.