On various notions of distance between subalgebras of operator algebras

Abstract

Given any irreducible inclusion $\mB \subset \mA$ of unital $C^*$-algebras with a finite-index conditional expectation $E: \mA \to \mB$, we show that the set of $E$-compatible intermediate $C^*$-subalgebras is finite, thereby generalizing a finiteness result of Ino and Watatani (from \cite{IW}). A finiteness result for a certain collection of intermediate $C^*$-subalgebras of a non-irreducible inclusion of simple unital $C^*$-algebras is also obtained, which provides a $C^*$-version of a finiteness result of Khoshkam and Mashood (from \cite{KM}). Apart from these finiteness results, comparisons between various notions of distance between subalgebras of operator algebras by Kadison-Kastler, Christensen and Mashood-Taylor are made. Further, these comparisons are used satisfactorily to provide some concrete calculations of distance between operator algebras associated to two distinct subgroups of a given discrete group.