Towards Noncommutative Topological Quantum Field Theory: New invariants for 3-manifolds

We present some ideas for a possible Noncommutative Topological Quantum Field Theory (NCTQFT for short) and Noncommutative Floer Homology (NCFH for short). Our motivation is two-fold and it comes both from physics and mathematics: On the one hand we argue that NCTQFT is the correct mathematical framework for a quantum field theory of all known interactions in nature (including gravity). On the other hand we hope that a possible NCFH will apply to practically every 3-manifold (and not only to homology 3-spheres as ordinary Floer Homology currently does). The two motivations are closely related since, at least in the commutative case, Floer Homology Groups constitute the space of quantum observables of (3+1)-dim Topological Quantum Field Theory. Towards this goal we define some new invariants for 3-manifolds using the space of taut codim-1 foliations modulo coarse isotopy along with various techniques from noncommutative geometry.