The weak closure of the set of left translation operators

It is known that for an amenable locally compact group , is not in the weak closure of of . In this paper, it is proved that the converse of this is true. In other words, if is a non-amenable locally compact group, then is in the weak closure of . This answers several questions of Ülger. Applications to the algebra and the dual of the reduced group -algebra are obtained.

     

Some remarks on the real rank of non-unital C*-algebras

For a non-unital C-algebra , let be the C-algebra obtained from by adjoining an identity. In this paper we show that

where is a locally compact Hausdorff space with .

     

A class of differentiable toral maps which are topologically mixing

We show that on the 2-torus there exists a open set of regular maps such that every map belonging to is topologically mixing but is not Anosov. It was shown by Mañé that this property fails for the class of toral diffeomorphisms, but that the property does hold for the class of diffeomorphisms on the 3-torus . Recently Bonatti and Diaz proved that the second result of Mañé is also true for the class of diffeomorphisms on the -torus ().

     

-algebras that are only weakly semiprojective

We show that the -algebra of continuous functions on the Cantor set is a weakly semiprojective -algebra that is not semiprojective.

     

Linear maps preserving ideals of -algebras

We show that unital self-adjoint linear bijections of matrix algebras, type factors and abelian -algebras preserving maximal left ideals are isomorphisms and we show that a unital continuous linear map of a -algebra that maps the minimal left ideal into itself is the identity map.     

A criterion for splitting -algebras in tensor products

The goal of the paper is to prove the following theorem: if , are unital -algebras, simple and nuclear, then any -subalgebra of the -tensor product of and , which contains the tensor product of with the scalar multiples of the unit of , splits in the -tensor product of with some -subalgebra of .

     

Associative rings satisfying the Engel condition

Let be a commutative ring, and let be an associative -algebra generated by elements . We show that if satisfies the Engel condition of degree , then is upper Lie nilpotent of class bounded by a function that depends only on and . We deduce that the Engel condition in an arbitrary associative ring is inherited by its group of units, and implies a semigroup identity.

     

Positivity of polarizations of -positive maps

It is shown that polarization formulas have explicit matrix representations. This enables us to prove that polarization formulas of -positive maps between -algebras are coordinatewise positive.

     

Relative Brauer groups of discrete valued fields

Let be a non-trivial finite Galois extension of a field . In this paper we investigate the role that valuation-theoretic properties of play in determining the non-triviality of the relative Brauer group, , of over . In particular, we show that when is finitely generated of transcendence degree 1 over a -adic field and is a prime dividing , then the following conditions are equivalent: (i) the -primary component, , is non-trivial, (ii) is infinite, and (iii) there exists a valuation of trivial on such that divides the order of the decomposition group of at .

     

Toeplitz -algebras on ordered groups and their ideals of finite elements

Let be a discrete abelian group and an ordered group. Denote by the minimal quasily ordered group containing . In this paper, we show that the ideal of finite elements is exactly the kernel of the natural morphism between these two Toeplitz -algebras. When is countable, we show that if the direct sum of -groups , then .

     

Stability of -algebras associated to graphs

We characterize stability of graph -algebras by giving five conditions equivalent to their stability. We also show that if is a graph with no sources, then is stable if and only if each vertex in can be reached by an infinite number of vertices. We use this characterization to realize the stabilization of a graph -algebra. Specifically, if is a graph and is the graph formed by adding a head to each vertex of , then is the stabilization of ; that is, .

     

Tietze extension theorem for Hilbert -modules

We prove the following generalization of the noncommutative Tietze extension theorem: if is a countably generated Hilbert -module over a -unital -algebra, then the canonical extension of a surjective morphism of Hilbert -modules to extended (multiplier) modules, , is also surjective.

     

Type factors generated by purely infinite simple C*-algebras associated with free groups

Let be a free product of at least two but at most countably many cyclic groups. With each such group we associate a family of C*-algebras, denoted and generated by the reduced group C*-algebra and a collection of projections onto the -spaces over certain subsets of . We determine , the weak closure of in , and use this result to show that many of the C*-algebras in question are non-nuclear.

     

The connected stable rank of the purely infinite simple -algebras

Suppose that is a unital purely infinite simple -algebra. If the class [1] of the unit 1 in has torsion, then ; if [1] is torsion-free in , then . If is a non-unital purely infinite simple -algebra, then .

     

On Tate-Shafarevich groups of abelian varieties

Let be a finite Galois extension of number fields with Galois group , let be an abelian variety defined over , and let and denote, respectively, the Tate-Shafarevich groups of over and of over . Assuming that these groups are finite, we derive, under certain restrictions on and , a formula for the order of the subgroup of of -invariant elements. As a corollary, we obtain a simple formula relating the orders of , and when is a quadratic extension and is the twist of by the non-trivial character of .

     

A description of Hilbert -modules in which all closed submodules are orthogonally closed

Let , be -algebras and a full Hilbert --bimodule such that every closed right submodule is orthogonally closed, i.e., . Then there are families of Hilbert spaces , such that and are isomorphic to -direct sums , resp. , and is isomorphic to the outer direct sum .

     

Finite generation of powers of ideals

Suppose is a maximal ideal of a commutative integral domain and that some power of is finitely generated. We show that is finitely generated in each of the following cases: (i) is of height one, (ii) is integrally closed and , (iii) is a monoid domain over a field , where is a cancellative torsion-free monoid such that , and is the maximal ideal . We extend the above results to ideals of a reduced ring such that is Noetherian. We prove that a reduced ring is Noetherian if each prime ideal of has a power that is finitely generated. For each with , we establish existence of a -dimensional integral domain having a nonfinitely generated maximal ideal of height such that is -generated.

     

Bousfield localizations of classifying spaces of nilpotent groups

Let be a finitely generated nilpotent group. The object of this paper is to identify the Bousfield localization of the classifying space with respect to a multiplicative complex oriented homology theory . We show that is the same as the localization of with respect to the ordinary homology theory determined by the ring .

     

Harmonic maps with noncontact boundary values

Every rank one symmetric space , of noncompact type, admits a compactification by attaching a sphere at infinity. If does not have constant sectional curvature, then admits a natural contact structure. This paper presents a number of harmonic maps , from to , which extend continuously to , and have noncontact boundary values. If the boundary values are assumed continuously differentiable, then the contact structure must be preserved.

     

Helly-type theorems for hollow axis-aligned boxes

A hollow axis-aligned box is the boundary of the cartesian product of compact intervals in . We show that for , if any of a collection of hollow axis-aligned boxes have non-empty intersection, then the whole collection has non-empty intersection; and if any of a collection of hollow axis-aligned rectangles in have non-empty intersection, then the whole collection has non-empty intersection. The values for and for are the best possible in general. We also characterize the collections of hollow boxes which would be counterexamples if were lowered to , and to , respectively.