In this chapter we present some of the basic concepts needed to describe noncommutative spaces and their topological and geometrical features. We therefore complement the previous chapters where noncommutative spaces have been described by the commutation relations of their coordinates. The full algebraic description of ordinary (commutative) spaces requires the completion of the algebra of coordinates into a \(C^\star\)-algebra, this encodes the Hausdorff topology of the space. The smooth manifold structure is next encoded in a subalgebra (of “smooth” functions). Relaxing the requirement of commutativity of the algebra opens the way to the definition of noncommutative spaces, which in some cases can be a deformation of an ordinary space. A powerful method to study these noncommutative algebras is to represent them as operators on a Hilbert space. We discuss the noncommutative space generated by two noncommuting variables with a constant commutator. This is the space of the noncommutative field theories described in this book, as well as the elementary phase space of quantum mechanics. The Weyl map from operators to functions is introduced in order to produce a \(\star\)-product description of this noncommutative space.
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Lizzi, F. (2009). Noncommutative Spaces. In: Noncommutative Spacetimes. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 774. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89793-4_6
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