Groupoids and an index theorem for conical pseudo-manifolds

Abstract We define an analytical index map and a topological index map for conical pseudomanifolds. These constructions generalize the analogous constructions used by Atiyah and Singer in the proof of their topological index theorem for a smooth, compact manifold M. A main new ingredient in our proof is a non-commutative algebra that plays in our setting the role of 𝒞0(T*M). We prove a Thom isomorphism between non-commutative algebras which gives a new example of wrong way functoriality in K-theory. We then give a new proof of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem using deformation groupoids and show how it generalizes to conical pseudomanifolds. We thus prove a topological index theorem for conical pseudomanifolds.