Quantum Riemannian Geometry

This book provides a comprehensive account of a modern generalisation of differential geometry in which coordinates need not commute. This requires a reinvention of differential geometry that refers only to the coordinate algebra, now possibly noncommutative, rather than to actual points. Such a theory is needed for the geometry of Hopf algebras or quantum groups, which provide key examples, as well as in physics to model quantum gravity effects in the form of quantum spacetime. The mathematical formalism can be applied to any algebra and includes graph geometry and a Lie theory of finite groups. Even the algebra of 2 x 2 matrices turns out to admit a rich moduli of quantum Riemannian geometries. The approach taken is a `bottom up’ one in which the different layers of geometry are built up in succession, starting from differential forms and proceeding up to the notion of a quantum `Levi-Civita’ bimodule connection, geometric Laplacians and, in some cases, Dirac operators. Thebook also