Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2008
Let G be a locally compact group acting smoothly and properly by isometries on a complete Riemannian manifold M, with compact quotient G\M. There is an assembly map which associates to any G-equivariant K-homology class on M, an element of the topological K-theory of a suitable Banach completion of the convolution algebra of continuous compactly supported functions on G. The aim of this paper is to calculate the composition of the assembly map with the Chern character in entire cyclic homology . We prove an index theorem reducing this computation to a cup-product in bivariant entire cyclic cohomology. As a consequence we obtain an explicit localization formula which includes, as particular cases, the equivariant Atiyah-Segal-Singer index theorem when G is compact, and the Connes-Moscovici index theorem for G-coverings when G is discrete. The proof is based on the bivariant Chern character introduced in previous papers.