On the Homotopy Type of the Unitary Group and the Grassmann Space of Purely Infinite Simple C*-Algebras

We completely determine the homotopy groups _n (.) of the unitary group and the space of projections of purely infinite simple C ^*-algebras in terms of K-theory. We also prove that the unitary group of a purely infinite simple C ^*-algebra A is a contractible topological space if and only if K0(A) = K1(A) = {0}, and again if and only if the unitary group of the associated generalized Calkin algebra L(HA) / K(HA) is contractible. The well-known Kuiper's theorem is extended to a new class of C ^*-algebras.