These notes represent the subject of five lectures which were delivered as a minicourse during the VI conference in Krynica, Poland, “Geometry and Topology of Manifolds”, May, 2–8, 2004.
We consider the norm closure 𝔄 of the algebra of all operators of order and class zero in Boutet de Monvel's calculus on a compact manifold X with boundary ∂X. Assuming that all connected components of X have nonempty boundary, we show that K₁(𝔄) ≃ K₁(C(X)) ⊕ ker χ, where χ: K₀(C₀(T*Ẋ)) → ℤ is the topological index, T*Ẋ denoting the cotangent bundle of the interior. Also K₀(𝔄) is topologically determined. In case ∂X has torsion free K-theory, we get K₀(𝔄) ≃ K₀(C(X)) ⊕ K₁(C₀(T*Ẋ)).