The Dirac Operator of a Commuting d-Tuple

Given a commuting d-tuple T=(T1, …, Td) of otherwise arbitrary operators on a Hilbert space, there is an associated Dirac operator DT. Significant attributes of the d-tuple are best expressed in terms of DT, including the Taylor spectrum and the notion of Fredholmness. In fact, all properties of T derive from its Dirac operator. We introduce a general notion of Dirac operator (in dimension d=1, 2, …) that is appropriate for multivariable operator theory. We show that every abstract Dirac operator is associated with a commuting d-tuple, and that two Dirac operators are isomorphic iff their associated operator d-tuples are unitarily equivalent. By relating the curvature invariant introduced in a previous paper to the index of a Dirac operator, we establish a stability result for the curvature invariant for pure d -contractions of finite rank. It is shown that for the subcategory of all such T that are (a) Fredholm and and (b) graded, the curvature invariant K(T) is stable under compact perturbations. We do not know if this stability persists when T is Fredholm but ungraded, although there is concrete evidence that it does.