This volume contains the proceedings of an NSF-CBMS Conference held at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, May 18-22, 2009. The papers, written especially for this volume by well-known mathematicians and mathematical physicists, are an outgrowth of the talks presented at the conference. Topics examined are highly interdisciplinary and include, among many other things, recent results on D-brane charges in $K$-homology and twisted $K$-homology, Yang-Mills gauge theory and connections with non-commutative geometry, Landau-Ginzburg models, $C^*$-algebraic non-commutative geometry and ties to quantum physics and topology, the rational homotopy type of the group of unitary elements in an Azumaya algebra, and functoriality properties in the theory of $C^*$-crossed products and fixed point algebras for proper actions. An introduction, written by Jonathan Rosenberg, provides an instructive overview describing common themes and how the various papers in the volume are interrelated and fit together. The rich diversity of papers appearing in the volume demonstrates the current interplay between superstring theory, geometry/topology, and non-commutative geometry. The book will be of interest to graduate students, mathematicians, mathematical physicists, and researchers working in these areas.|This volume contains the proceedings of an NSF-CBMS Conference held at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, May 18-22, 2009. The papers, written especially for this volume by well-known mathematicians and mathematical physicists, are an outgrowth of the talks presented at the conference. Topics examined are highly interdisciplinary and include, among many other things, recent results on D-brane charges in $K$-homology and twisted $K$-homology, Yang-Mills gauge theory and connections with non-commutative geometry, Landau-Ginzburg models, $C^*$-algebraic non-commutative geometry and ties to quantum physics and topology, the rational homotopy type of the group of unitary elements in an Azumaya algebra, and functoriality properties in the theory of $C^*$-crossed products and fixed point algebras for proper actions. An introduction, written by Jonathan Rosenberg, provides an instructive overview describing common themes and how the various papers in the volume are interrelated and fit together. The rich diversity of papers appearing in the volume demonstrates the current interplay between superstring theory, geometry/topology, and non-commutative geometry. The book will be of interest to graduate students, mathematicians, mathematical physicists, and researchers working in these areas.
