We present a new approach to cyclic homology that does not involve the Connes differential and is based on a `noncommutative equivariant de Rham complex of an associative algebra. The differential in that complex is a sum of the Karoubi-de Rham diffe
rential, which replaces the Connes differential, and another operation analogous to contraction with a vector field. As a byproduct, we give a simple explicit construction of the Gauss-Manin connection, introduced earlier by E. Getzler, on the relative cyclic homology of a flat family of associative algebras over a central base ring. We introduce and study `free-product deformations of an associative algebra, a new type of deformation over a not necessarily commutative base ring. Natural examples of free-product deformations arise from preprojective algebras and group algebras for compact surface groups.
Based on the ideas of Cuntz and Quillen, we give a simple construction of cyclic homology of unital algebras in terms of the noncommutative de Rham complex and a certain differential similar to the equivariant de Rham differential. We describe the Co
nnes exact sequence in this setting. We define equivariant Deligne cohomology and construct, for each n > 0, a natural map from cyclic homology of an algebra to the GL_n-equivariant Deligne cohomology of the variety of n-dimensional representations of that algebra. The bridge between cyclic homology and equivariant Deligne cohomology is provided by extended cyclic homology, which we define and compute here, based on the extended noncommutative de Rham complex introduced previously by the authors.
We introduce a new formalism of differential operators for a general associative algebra A. It replaces Grothendiecks notion of differential operator on a commutative algebra in such a way that derivations of the commutative algebra are replaced by D
Der(A), the bimodule of double derivations. Our differential operators act not on the algebra A itself but rather on F(A), a certain `Fock space associated to any noncommutative algebra A in a functorial way. The corresponding algebra D(F(A)), of differential operators, is filtered and gr D(F(A)), the associated graded algebra, is commutative in some `twisted sense. The resulting double Poisson structure on gr D(F(A)) is closely related to the one introduced by Van den Bergh. Specifically, we prove that gr D(F(A))=F(T_A(DDer(A)), provided A is smooth. It is crucial for our construction that the Fock space F(A) carries an extra-structure of a wheelgebra, a new notion closely related to the notion of a wheeled PROP. There are also notions of Lie wheelgebras, and so on. In that language, D(F(A)) becomes the universal enveloping wheelgebra of a Lie wheelgebroid of double derivations. In the second part of the paper we show, extending a classical construction of Koszul to the noncommutative setting, that any Ricci-flat, torsion-free bimodule connection on DDer(A) gives rise to a second order (wheeled) differential operator, a noncommutative analogue of the BV-operator.
