Cyclic cohomology and Hopf algebras

Abstract

We show by a direct computation that, for any Hopf algebra with a modulus-like character, the formulas first introduced in [CM] in the context of characteristic classes for actions of Hopf algebras, do define a cyclic module. This provides a natural generalization of Lie algebra cohomology to the general framework of Noncommutative Geometry, which covers the case of the Hopf algebra associated to n-dimensional transverse geometry [CM] as well as the function algebras of the classical quantum groups.