Linear Logic and Noncommutativity in the Calculus of Structures

In this thesis I study several deductive systems for linear logic, its fragments, and some noncommutative extensions. All systems will be designed within the calculus of structures, which is a proof theoretical formalism for specifying logical systems, in the tradition of Hilbert's formalism, natural deduction, and the sequent calculus. Systems in the calculus of structures are based on two simple principles: deep inference and top-down symmetry. Together they have remarkable consequences for the properties of the logical systems. For example, for linear logic it is possible to design a deductive system, in which all rules are local. In particular, the contraction rule is reduced to an atomic version, and there is no global promotion rule. I will also show an extension of multiplicative exponential linear logic by a noncommutative, self-dual connective which is not representable in the sequent calculus. All systems enjoy the cut elimination property. Moreover, this can be proved independently from the sequent calculus via techniques that are based on the new top-down symmetry. Furthermore, for all systems, I will present several decomposition theorems which constitute a new type of normal form for derivations

Emergence of Riemannian geometry and the massive graviton

We overview a new mechanism whereby classical Riemannian geometry emerges out of the differential structure on quantum spacetime, as extension data for the classical algebra of differential forms. Outcomes for physics include a new formula for the standard Levi-Civita connection, a new point of view of the cosmological constant as a very small mass for the graviton of around $10^{-33}$ev, and a weakening of metric-compatibility in the presence of torsion. The same mechanism also provides a new construction for quantum bimodule connections on quantum spacetimes and a new approach to the quantum Ricci tensor.Comment: 14 pages, Amslatex, conference proceedings introduction; only fixed a few typos compared to previous versio

Sheaves that fail to represent matrix rings

There are two fundamental obstructions to representing noncommutative rings via sheaves. First, there is no subcanonical coverage on the opposite of the category of rings that includes all covering families in the big Zariski site. Second, there is no contravariant functor F from the category of rings to the category of ringed categories whose composite with the global sections functor is naturally isomorphic to the identity, such that F restricts to the Zariski spectrum functor Spec on the category of commutative rings (in a compatible way with the natural isomorphism). Both of these no-go results are proved by restricting attention to matrix rings.Comment: 13 pages; final versio

C∗C^*-algebraic drawings of dendroidal sets

In recent years the theory of dendroidal sets has emerged as an important framework for higher algebra. In this article we introduce the concept of a $C^*$-algebraic drawing of a dendroidal set. It depicts a dendroidal set as an object in the category of presheaves on $C^*$-algebras. We show that the construction is functorial and, in fact, it is the left adjoint of a Quillen adjunction between combinatorial model categories. We use this construction to produce a bridge between the two prominent paradigms of noncommutative geometry via adjunctions of presentable $\infty$-categories, which is the primary motivation behind this article. As a consequence we obtain a single mechanism to construct bivariant homology theories in both paradigms. We propose a (conjectural) roadmap to harmonize algebraic and analytic (or topological) bivariant K-theory. Finally, a method to analyse graph algebras in terms of trees is sketched.Comment: 28 pages; v2 expanded version with some improvements; v3 revised and added references; v4 some changes according to the suggestions of the referees (to appear in Algebr. Geom. Topol.