A K-theoretic note on geometric quantization

We give a purely K-theoretic proof of a case of the “quantization commutes with reduction” result, conjectured by Guillemin and Sternberg and proved by Meinrenken and Vergne. We show that the quantization is simply a pushforward in K-theory, and use Lerman's symplectic cutting and the localization theorem in equivariant K-theory to prove that quantization commutes with reduction. The case where G=S ¹ and the action is free on the zero level set of the moment map is addressed. Received: 9 March 1999