Quantum geodesic flows and curvature

Abstract

AbstractWe study geodesics flows on curved quantum Riemannian geometries using a recent formulation in terms of bimodule connections and completely positive maps. We complete this formalism with a canonical $$*$$ ∗ operation on noncommutative vector fields. We show on a classical manifold how the Ricci tensor arises naturally in our approach as a term in the convective derivative of the divergence of the geodesic velocity field and use this to propose a similar object in the noncommutative case. Examples include quantum geodesic flows on the algebra of $$2 \times 2$$ 2 × 2 matrices, fuzzy spheres and the q-sphere.