arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Andrew S. Toms.
We prove that a unital simple approximately homogeneous (AH) C*-algebra with no dimension growth absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra tensorially without appealing to the classification theory of these algebras. Our main result continues to hold under the slightly weaker hypothesis of exponentially slow dimension growth.
We prove that the C*-algebra of a minimal diffeomorphism satisfies Blackadar's Fundamental Comparability Property for positive elements. This leads to the classification, in terms of K-theory and traces, of the isomorphism classes of countably generated Hilbert modules over such algebras, and to a similar classification for the closures of unitary orbits of self-adjoint elements. We also obtain a structure theorem for the Cuntz semigroup in this setting, and prove a conjecture of Blackadar and Handelman: the lower semicontinuous dimension functions are weakly dense in the space of all dimension functions. These results continue to hold in the broader setting of unital simple ASH algebras with slow dimension growth and stable rank one. Our main tool is a sharp bound on the radius of comparison of a recursive subhomogeneous C*-algebra. This is also used to construct uncountably many non-Morita-equivalent simple separable amenable C*-algebras with the same K-theory and tracial state space, providing a C*-algebraic analogue of McDuff's uncountable family of II_1 factors. We prove in passing that the range of the radius of comparison is exhausted by simple C*-algebras.
We exhibit a unital simple nuclear non-type-I C*-algebra into which the Jiang-Su algebra does not embed unitally. This answers a question of M. Rørdam.
We report on recent progress in the program to classify separable amenable C*-algebras. Our emphasis is on the newly apparent role of regularity properties such as finite decomposition rank, strict comparison of positive elements, and Z-stability, and on the importance of the Cuntz semigroup. We include a brief history of the program's successes since 1989, a more detailed look at the Villadsen-type algebras which have so dramatically changed the landscape, and a collection of announcements on the structure and properties of the Cuntz semigroup.
We prove that the Cuntz semigroup is recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant for a large class of C*-algebras. In particular, our results apply to the largest class of simple C*-algebras for which K-theoretic classification can be hoped for. This work has three significant consequences. First, it provides new conceptual insight into Elliott's classification program, proving that the usual form of the Elliott conjecture is equivalent, among Z-stable algebras, to a conjecture which is in general substantially weaker and for which there are no known counterexamples. Second and third, it resolves, for the class of algebras above, two conjectures of Blackadar and Handelman concerning the basic structure of dimension functions on C*-algebras. We also prove in passing that the Cuntz-Pedersen semigroup is recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant for a large class of unital simple C*-algebras.
We exhibit a countably infinite family of simple, separable, nuclear, and mutually non-isomorphic C*-algebras which agree on K-theory and traces. The algebras do not absorb the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially, answering a question of N. C. Phillips. They are also pairwise shape and Morita equivalent. The distinguishing invariant is the radius of comparison, a non-stable invariant of the Cuntz semigroup.
We prove stability theorems in the Cuntz semigroup of a commutative C*-algebra which are analogues of classical stability theorems for topological vector bundles over compact Hausdorff spaces. Several applications to simple unital AH algebras of slow dimension growth are then given: such algebras have strict comparison of positive elements; their Cuntz semigroups are recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant; the lower-semicontinuous dimension functions are dense in the space of all dimension functions, and the latter is a Choquet simplex.
We prove that the infinite tensor power of a unital separable C*-algebra absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially if and only if it contains, unitally, a subhomogeneous algebra without characters. This yields a succinct universal property for Z in a category so large that there are no unital separable C*-algebras without characters known to lie outside it. This category moreover contains the vast majority of our stock-in-trade separable amenable C*-algebras, and is closed under passage to separable superalgebras and quotients, and hence to unital tensor products, unital direct limits, and crossed products by countable discrete groups. One consequence of our main result is that strongly self-absorbing ASH algebras are Z-stable, and therefore satisfy the hypotheses of a recent classification theorem of W. Winter. One concludes that Z is the only projectionless strongly self-absorbing ASH algebra, completing the classification of strongly self-absorbing ASH algebras.
Building on work of Elliott and coworkers, we present three applications of the Cuntz semigroup: (i) for many simple C$^*$-algebras, the Thomsen semigroup is recovered functorially from the Elliott invariant, and this yields a new proof of Elliott's classification theorem for simple, unital AI algebras; (ii) for the algebras in (i), classification of their Hilbert modules is similar to the von Neumann algebra context; (iii) for the algebras in (i), approximate unitary equivalence of self-adjoint operators is characterised in terms of the Elliott invariant.
We study the limits of inductive sequences (A_i,ϕ_i) where each A_i is a direct sum of full matrix algebras over compact metric spaces and each partial map of ϕ_i is diagonal. We give a new characterisation of simplicity for such algebras, and apply it to prove that the said algebras have stable rank one whenever they are simple and unital. Significantly, our results do not require any dimension growth assumption.
We introduce the growth rank of a C*-algebra, a (N \cup {\infty})-valued invariant which measures how far an algebra is from absorbing the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially. We prove that its range is exhausted by simple nuclear C*-algebras, and obtain in the process a well developed theory of unbounded dimension growth for approximately homogeneous (AH) algebras. Another consequence of the range result is the existence of a simple, nuclear, and non-Z-stable C*-algebra which is not tensorially prime. The properties of the growth rank suggest a universal property which may be considered inside any class of unital and nuclear C*-algebras. We prove that Z satisfies this property inside a class of locally subhomogeneous algebras.
We study the class of simple C*-algebras introduced by Villadsen in his pioneering work on perforated ordered K-theory. We establish six equivalent characterisations of the proper subclass which satisfies the strong form of Elliott's classification conjecture: two C*-algebraic (Z-stability and approximate divisibility), one K-theoretic (strict comparison of positive elements), and three topological (finite decomposition rank, slow dimension growth, and bounded dimension growth). The equivalence of Z-stability and strict comparison constitutes a stably finite version of Kirchberg's characterisation of purely infinite C*-algebras. The other equivalences confirm, for Villadsen's algebras, heretofore conjectural relationships between various notions of good behaviour for nuclear C*-algebras.
We construct a simple, unital AH algebra which is shape equivalent to its tensor product with any infinite-dimensional UHF algebra, has the same tracial simplex as the said tensor product, and yet is not isomorphic to it. An analogous result for automorphisms is also proved.
Let A be a simple, unital, exact, and finite C*-algebra which absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially. We prove that the Cuntz semigroup of A admits a complete order embedding into an ordered semigroup obtained from the Elliott invariant in a functorial manner. We conjecture that this embedding is an isomorphism, and prove the conjecture in several cases. In these same cases -- Z-stable algebras all -- we prove that the Elliott conjecture in its strongest form is equivalent to a conjecture which appears much weaker. Outside the class of Z-stable algebras, this weaker conjecture has no known counterexamples, and it is plausible that none exist. Thus, we reconcile the still intact principle of Elliott's classification conjecture -- that K-theoretic invariants will classify separable and nuclear C*-algebras -- with the recent appearance of counterexamples to its strongest concrete form.
An unital C*-algebra A is said to have cancellation of projections if the semigroup D(A) of Murray-von Neumann equivalence classes of projections in matrices over A is cancellative. It has long been known that stable rank one implies cancellation, and some partial convereses have been established. We prove that cancellation does not imply stable rank one for simple, stably finite C*-algebras.
We introduce two nonnegative real-valued invariants for unital and stably finite C*-algebras whose minimal instances coincide with the notion of classifiability via the Elliott invariant. The first of these is defined for AH algebras, and may be thought of as a generalisation of slow dimension growth. The second invariant is defined for any unital and stably finite algebra, and may be thought of as an abstract version of the first invariant. We establish connections between both invariants and ordered K-theory, and prove that the range of the first invariant is exhausted by simple unital AH algebras. Consequently, the class of simple, unital, and non-Z-stable AH algebras is uncountable.
Let (G,G^+) be a simple ordered abelian group. We say that G has strong perforation if there exists a non-positive element x in G such that nx is positive and non-zero for some natural number n. Otherwise, the group is said to be weakly unperforated. Examples of simple C*-algebras whose ordered K_0-groups have this property and for which the entire order structure on K_0 is known have, until now, been restricted to the case where K_0 is group isomorphic to the integers. We construct simple, separable, unital C*-algebras with strongly perforated K_0-groups group isomorphic to an arbitrary infinitely generated subgroup of the rationals, and determine the order structure on K_0 in each case.
We construct a simple, separable, unital, and nuclear C*-algebra with weakly unperforated K_0-group which does not absorb the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially. As a result, we obtain a stably finite counter-example to Elliott's classification conjecture for simple, separable, and nuclear C*-algebras.