arXiv subjects

Mikael Rordam

Publications and source records attributed to Mikael Rordam.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

Fixed-points in the cone of traces on a C*-algebra

Nicolas Monod introduced the class of groups with the fixed-point property for cones, characterized by always admitting a non-zero fixed point whenever acting (suitably) on proper weakly complete cones. He proved that his class of groups contains the class of groups with subexponential growth and is contained in the class of supramenable groups. In this paper we investigate what Monod's results say about the existence of invariant traces on (typically non-unital) C*-algebras equipped with an action of a group with the fixed-point property for cones. As an application of these results we provide results on the existence (and non-existence) of traces on the (non-uniform) Roe algebra.

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arXiv2017

Just-infinite C*-algebras and their invariants

Just-infinite C*-algebras, i.e., infinite dimensional C*-algebras, whose proper quotients are finite dimensional, were investigated in [Grigorchuk-Musat-Rordam, 2016]. One particular example of a just-infinite residually finite dimensional AF-algebras was constructed in that article. In this paper we extend that construction by showing that each infinite dimensional metrizable Choquet simplex is affinely homeomorphic to the trace simplex of a just-infinite residually finite dimensional C*-algebras. The trace simplex of any unital residually finite dimensional C*-algebra is hence realized by a just-infinite one. We determine the trace simplex of the particular residually finite dimensional AF-algebras constructed in the above mentioned article, and we show that it has precisely one extremal trace of type II_1. We give a complete description of the Bratteli diagrams corresponding to residually finite dimensional AF-algebras. We show that a modification of any such Bratteli diagram, similar to the modification that makes an arbitrary Bratteli diagram simple, will yield a just-infinite residually finite dimensional AF-algebra.

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arXiv2014

Universal properties of group actions on locally compact spaces

We study universal properties of locally compact G-spaces for countable infinite groups G. In particular we consider open invariant subsets of the β-compactification of G (which is a G-space in a natural way), and their minimal closed invariant subspaces. These are locally compact free G-spaces, and the latter are also minimal. We examine the properies of these G-spaces with emphasis on their universal properties. As an example of our resuts, we use combinatorial methods to show that each countable infinite group admits a free minimal action on the locally compact non-compact Cantor set.

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arXiv2014

When central sequence C*-algebras have characters

We investigate C*-algebras whose central sequence algebra has no characters, and we raise the question if such C*-algebras necessarily must absorb the Jiang-Su algebra (provided that they also are separable). We relate this question to a question of Dadarlat and Toms if the Jiang-Su algebra always embeds into the infinite tensor power of any unital C*-algebra without characters. We show that absence of characters of the central sequence algebra implies that the C*-algebra has the so-called strong Corona Factorization Property, and we use this result to exhibit simple nuclear separable unital C*-algebras whose central sequence algebra does admit a character. We show how stronger divisibility properties on the central sequence algebra imply stronger regularity properties of the underlying C*-algebra.

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arXiv2014

Elementary amenable groups are quasidiagonal

We show that the group C*-algebra of any elementary amenable group is quasidiagonal. This is an offspring of recent progress in the classification theory of nuclear C*-algebras.

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arXiv2013

Non-supramenable groups acting on locally compact spaces

Supramenability of groups is characterised in terms of invariant measures on locally compact spaces. This opens the door to constructing interesting crossed product C*-algebras for non-supramenable groups. In particular, stable Kirchberg algebras in the UCT class are constructed using crossed products for both amenable and non-amenable groups.

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arXiv2013

Central sequence C*-algebras and tensorial absorption of the Jiang-Su algebra

We study properties of the central sequence algebra of a C*-algebra, and we present an alternative approach to a recent result of Matui and Sato. They prove that every unital separable simple nuclear C*-algebra, whose trace simplex is finite dimensional, tensorially absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra if and only if it has the strict comparison property. We extend their result to the case where the extreme boundary of the trace simplex is closed and of finite topological dimension. We are also able to relax the assumption on the C*-algebra of having the strict comparison property to a weaker property, that we call local weak comparison. Namely, we prove that a unital separable simple nuclear C*-algebra, whose trace simplex has finite dimensional closed extreme boundary, tensorially absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra if and only if it has the local weak comparison property. We can also eliminate the nuclearity assumption, if instead we assume the (SI) property of Matui and Sato, and, moreover, that each II_1-factor representation of the C*-algebra is a McDuff factor.

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arXiv2011

Divisibility properties for C*-algebras

We consider three notions of divisibility in the Cuntz semigroup of a C*-algebra, and show how they reflect properties of the C*-algebra. We develop methods to construct (simple and non-simple) C*-algebras with specific divisibility behaviour. As a byproduct of our investigations, we show that there exists a sequence $(A_n)$ of simple unital infinite dimensional C*-algebras such that the product $\prod_{n=1}^\infty A_n$ has a character.

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arXiv2010

Purely infinite C*-algebras arising from crossed products

We study conditions that will ensure that a crossed product of a C*-algebra by a discrete exact group is purely infinite (simple or non-simple). We are particularly interested in the case of a discrete non-amenable exact group acting on a commutative C*-algebra, where our sufficient conditions can be phrased in terms of paradoxicality of subsets of the spectrum of the abelian C*-algebra. As an application of our results we show that every discrete countable non-amenable exact group admits a free amenable minimal action on the Cantor set such that the corresponding crossed product C*-algebra is a Kirchberg algebra in the UCT class.

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arXiv2010

The Cuntz Semigroup and Comparison of Open Projections

We show that a number of naturally occurring comparison relations on positive elements in a C*-algebra are equivalent to natural comparison properties of their corresponding open projections in the bidual of the C*-algebra. In particular we show that Cuntz comparison of positive elements corresponds to a comparison relation on open projections, that we call Cuntz comparison, and which is defined in terms of-and is weaker than-a comparison notion defined by Peligrad and Zsidó. The latter corresponds to a well-known comparison relation on positive elements defined by Blackadar. We show that Murray-von Neumann comparison of open projections corresponds to tracial comparison of the corresponding positive elements of the C*-algebra. We use these findings to give a new picture of the Cuntz semigroup.

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arXiv2010

The Corona Factorization property, Stability, and the Cuntz semigroup of a C*-algebra

The Corona Factorization Property, originally invented to study extensions of C*-algebras, conveys essential information about the intrinsic structure of the C*-algebras. We show that the Corona Factorization Property of a σ-unital C*-algebra is completely captured by its Cuntz semigroup (of equivalence classes of positive elements in the stabilization of A). The corresponding condition in the Cuntz semigroup is a very weak comparability property termed the Corona Factorization Property for semigroups. Using this result one can for example show that all unital C*-algebras with finite decomposition rank have the Corona Factorization Property. Applying similar techniques we study the related question of when C*-algebras are stable. We give an intrinsic characterization, that we term property (S), of C*-algebras that have no non-zero unital quotients and no non-zero bounded 2-quasitraces. We then show that property (S) is equivalent to stability provided that the Cuntz semigroup of the C*-algebras satisfies another (also very weak) comparability property, that we call the ω-comparison property.

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arXiv2009

Endomorphisms of O_n which preserve the canonical UHF-subalgebra

Unital endomorphisms of the Cuntz algebra O_n which preserve the canonical UHF-subalgebra F_n of O_n are investigated. We give examples of such endomorphisms for which the associated unitary element in O_n does not belong to F_n. One such example, in the case where n=2, arises from a construction of a unital endomorphism on O_2 which preserves the canonical UHF-subalgebra and where the relative commutant of the image in O_2 contains a copy of O_2.

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arXiv2009

The Corona Factorization Property and Refinement Monoids

The Corona Factorization Property of a C*-algebra, originally defined to study extensions of C*-algebras, has turned out to say something important about intrinsic structural properties of the C*-algebra. We show in this paper that a σ-unital C*-algebra A of real rank zero has the Corona Factorization roperty if and only if its monoid V(A) of Murray-von Neumann equivalence classes of projections in matrix algebras over A has a certain (rather weak) comparability property that we call the Corona Factorization Property (for monoids). We show that a projection in such a C*-algebra is properly infinite if (and only if) a multiple of it is properly infinite. The latter result is obtained from some more general result we establish about conical refinement monoids. We show that the set of order units (together with the zero-element) in a conical refinement monoid is again a refinement monoid under the assumption that the monoid satisfies weak divisibility; and if u is an element in a refinement monoid such that nu is properly infinite, then u can be written as a sum u = s + t such that ns and nt are properly infinite.

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arXiv2009

Strongly Self-Absorbing C*-algebras which contain a nontrivial projection

It is shown that a strongly self-absorbing C*-algebra is of real rank zero and absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra if it contains a nontrivial projection. We also consider cases where the UCT is automatic for strongly self-absorbing C*-algebras, and K-theoretical ways of characterizing when Kirchberg algebras are strongly self-absorbing.

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arXiv2008

The Jiang-Su algebra revisited

We give a number of new characterizations of the Jiang-Su algebra Z, both intrinsic and extrinsic, in terms of C*-algebraic, dynamical, topological and K-theoretic conditions. Along the way we study divisibility properties of C*-algebras, we give a precise characterization of those unital C*-algebras of stable rank one that admit a unital embedding of the dimension-drop C*-algebra Z_{n,n+1}, and we prove a cancellation theorem for the Cuntz semigroup of C*-algebras of stable rank one.

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arXiv2007

Properly infinite C(X)-algebras and K_1-injectivity

We investigate if a unital C(X)-algebra is properly infinite when all its fibres are properly infinite. We show that this question can be rephrased in several different ways, including the question if every unital properly infinite C*-algebra is K_1-injective. We provide partial answers to these questions, and we show that the general question on proper infiniteness of C(X)-algebras can be reduced to establishing proper infiniteness of a specific C([0,1])-algebra with properly infinite fibres.

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arXiv2006

C_0(X)-algebras, stability and strongly self-absorbing C*-algebras

We study permanence properties of the classes of stable and so-called D-stable C*-algebras, respectively. More precisely, we show that a C_0(X)-algebra A is stable if all its fibres are, provided that the underlying compact metrizable space X has finite covering dimension or that the Cuntz semigroup of A is almost unperforated (a condition which is automatically satisfied for C*-algebras absorbing the Jiang--Su algebra Z tensorially). Furthermore, we prove that if D is a K_1-injective strongly self-absorbing C*-algebra, then A absorbs D tensorially if and only if all its fibres do, again provided that X is finite-dimensional. This latter statement generalizes results of Blanchard and Kirchberg. We also show that the condition on the dimension of X cannot be dropped. Along the way, we obtain a useful characterization of when a C*-algebra with weakly unperforated Cuntz semigroup is stable, which allows us to show that stability passes to extensions of Z-absorbing C*-algebras.

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arXiv2006

Purely infinite C*-algebras of real rank zero

We show that a separable purely infinite C*-algebra is of real rank zero if and only if its primitive ideal space has a basis consisting of compact-open sets and the natural map K_0(I) -> K_0(I/J) is surjective for all closed two-sided ideals J contained in I in the C*-algebra. It follows in particular that if A is any separable C*-algebra, then A tensor O_2 is of real rank zero if and only if the primitive ideal space of A has a basis of compact-open sets, which again happens if and only if A tensor O_2 has the ideal property, also known as property (IP).

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