The relation between the Baum-Connes Conjecture and the Trace Conjecture

Abstract.

We prove a version of the L ²-index Theorem of Atiyah, which uses the universal center-valued trace instead of the standard trace. We construct for G-equivariant K-homology an equivariant Chern character, which is an isomorphism and lives over the ring ℤ⊂λ^G⊂ℚ obtained from the integers by inverting the orders of all finite subgroups of G. We use these two results to show that the Baum-Connes Conjecture implies the modified Trace Conjecture, which says that the image of the standard trace K ₀(C ^* _r (G))→ℝ takes values in λ^G. The original Trace Conjecture predicted that its image lies in the additive subgroup of ℝ generated by the inverses of all the orders of the finite subgroups of G, and has been disproved by Roy [15].