Higher Order Connections in Noncommutative Geometry

Abstract: We prove that, in the setting of noncommutative differential geometry, a system of higher order connections is equivalent to a suitable generalization of the notion of phase space quantization (in the sense of Moyal star products on the symbol algebra). Moreover, we show that higher order connections are equivalent to (ordinary) connections on jet modules. This involves introducing the notion of natural linear differential operator, as well as an important family of examples of such operators, namely the Spencer operators, generalizing their corresponding classical analogues. Spencer operators form the building blocks of this theory by providing a method of converting between the different manifestations of higher order connections. A system of such higher order connections then gives a quantization, by which we mean a splitting of the quotient projection that defines symbols as classes of differential operators up to differential operators of lower order. This yields a notion of total symbol and of star product, the latter of which corresponds, when restricted to the classical setting, to phase space quantization in the context of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, we allow the analogues of the position coordinates to form a possibly noncommutative algebra.