In noncommutative geometry and related branches of mathematics, cyclic homology and cyclic cohomology are certain (co)homology theories for associative algebras which generalize the de Rham (co)homology of manifolds. These notions were independently introduced by Boris Tsygan (homology) and Alain Connes (cohomology) in the 1980s. These invariants have many interesting relationships with several older branches of mathematics, including de Rham theory, Hochschild (co)homology, group cohomology, and the K-theory. Contributors to the development of the theory include Max Karoubi, Yuri L. Daletskii, Boris Feigin, Jean-Luc Brylinski, Mariusz Wodzicki, Jean-Louis Loday, Victor Nistor, Daniel Quillen, Joachim Cuntz, Ryszard Nest, Ralf Meyer, and Michael Puschnigg. Hints about definition The first definition of the cyclic homology of a ring A over a field of characteristic zero, denoted HCn(A) or Hnλ(A), proceeded by the means of the following explicit chain complex related to the Hochschild homology complex of A, called the Connes complex: For any natural number n ≥ 0, define the operator which generates the natural cyclic action of on the n-th tensor product of A: Recall that the Hochschild complex groups of A with coefficients in A itself are given by setting for all n ≥ 0. Then the components of the Connes complex are defined as , and the differential is the restriction of the Hochschild differential to this quotient. One can check that the Hochschild differential does indeed factor through to this space of coinvariants. Connes later found a more categorical approach to cyclic homology using a notion of cyclic object in an abelian category, which is analogous to the notion of simplicial object. In this way, cyclic homology (and cohomology) may be interpreted as a derived functor, which can be explicitly computed by the means of the (b, B)-bicomplex. If the field k contains the rational numbers, the definition in terms of the Connes complex calculates the same homology. One of the striking features of cyclic homology is the existence of a long exact sequence connecting Hochschild and cyclic homology. This long exact sequence is referred to as the periodicity sequence. Case of commutative rings Cyclic cohomology of the commutative algebra A of regular functions on an affine algebraic variety over a field k of characteristic zero can be computed in terms of Grothendieck's algebraic de Rham complex. In particular, if the variety V=Spec A is smooth, cyclic cohomology of A are expressed in terms of the de Rham cohomology of