On globally non-trivial almost-commutative manifolds

Within the framework of Connes' noncommutative geometry, we define and study globally non-trivial (or topologically non-trivial) almost-commutative manifolds. In particular, we focus on those almost-commutative manifolds that lead to a description of a (classical) gauge theory on the underlying base manifold. Such an almost-commutative manifold is described in terms of a "principal module," which we build from a principal fibre bundle and a finite spectral triple. We also define the purely algebraic notion of "gauge modules," and show that this yields a proper subclass of the principal modules. We describe how a principal module leads to the description of a gauge theory, and we provide two basic yet illustrative examples.