The ideal property, the projection property, continuous fields and crossed products

Let A be the C^∗-algebra associated to an arbitrary continuous field of C^∗-algebras. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for A to have the ideal property and, if moreover A is separable, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for A to have the projection property. Some applications of these results are given. We also prove that “many” crossed products of commutative C^∗-algebras by discrete, amenable groups have the projection property, generalizing some of our previous results.     

Upper triangular operator matrices with the single-valued extension property

If A=(Aij)_1?i,j?n∈B(X) is an upper triangular Banach space operator such that AiiAij=AijAjj for all 1?i?j?n, then A has SVEP or satisfies (Dunford's) condition (C) or (Bishop's) property (β) or (the decomposition) property (δ) if and only if Aii, 1?i?n, has the corresponding property.     

On extension of isometries and approximate isometries between unit spheres

In this paper, we will study the isometric extension problem for L¹-spaces and prove that every surjective isometry from the unit sphere of L¹(μ) onto that of a Banach space E can be extended to a linear surjective isometry from L¹(μ) onto E. Moreover, we introduce the approximate isometric extension problem and show that, if E and F are Banach spaces and E satisfies the property (m) (special cases are L^∞(Γ), C₀(Ω) and L^∞(μ)), then every bijective ?-isometry between the unit spheres of E and F can be extended to a bijective 5?-isometry between their closed unit balls. At last, we will give an example to show that the surjectivity assumption cannot be omitted. Using this, we solve the non-surjective isometric extension problem in the negative.     

Variations on Weyl's theorem

In this note we study the property (w), a variant of Weyl's theorem introduced by Rako?evi?, by means of the localized single-valued extension property (SVEP). We establish for a bounded linear operator defined on a Banach space several sufficient and necessary conditions for which property (w) holds. We also relate this property with Weyl's theorem and with another variant of it, a-Weyl's theorem. We show that Weyl's theorem, a-Weyl's theorem and property (w) for T (respectively T^*) coincide whenever T^* (respectively T) satisfies SVEP. As a consequence of these results, we obtain that several classes of commonly considered operators have property (w).     

Functional calculus and ∗-regularity of a class of Banach algebras II

In this article, we define a natural Banach ∗-algebra for a C^∗-dynamical system (A,G,α) which is slightly bigger than L¹(G;A) (they are the same if A is finite-dimensional). We will show that this algebra is ∗-regular if G has polynomial growth. The main result in this article extends the two main results in [C.W. Leung, C.K. Ng, Functional calculus and ∗-regularity of a class of Banach algebras, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc., in press].     

On the topology of the Kasparov groups and its applications

In this paper we establish a direct connection between stable approximate unitary equivalence for *-homomorphisms and the topology of the KK-groups which avoids entirely C^*-algebra extension theory and does not require nuclearity assumptions. To this purpose we show that a topology on the Kasparov groups can be defined in terms of approximate unitary equivalence for Cuntz pairs and that this topology coincides with both Pimsner's topology and the Brown-Salinas topology. We study the generalized Rørdam group , and prove that if a separable exact residually finite dimensional C^*-algebra satisfies the universal coefficient theorem in KK-theory, then it embeds in the UHF algebra of type 2^∞. In particular such an embedding exists for the C^*-algebra of a second countable amenable locally compact maximally almost periodic group.     

The Rohlin property for automorphisms of the Jiang-Su algebra

For projectionless C^∗-algebras absorbing the Jiang-Su algebra tensorially, we study a kind of the Rohlin property for automorphisms. We show that the crossed products obtained by automorphisms with this Rohlin property also absorb the Jiang-Su algebra tensorially under a mild technical condition on the C^∗-algebras. In particular, for the Jiang-Su algebra we show the uniqueness up to outer conjugacy of the automorphism with this Rohlin property.     

A functional characterization of measures and the Banach-Ulam problem

For a measurable space (Ω,A), let ?_∞(A) be the closure of span{χA:A∈A} in ?_∞(Ω). In this paper we show that a sufficient and necessary condition for a real-valued finitely additive measure μ on (Ω,A) to be countably additive is that the corresponding functional ?μ defined by (for x∈?_∞(A)) is w^*-sequentially continuous. With help of the Yosida-Hewitt decomposition theorem of finitely additive measures, we show consequently that every continuous functional on ?_∞(A) can be uniquely decomposed into the ?₁-sum of a w^*-continuous functional, a purely w^*-sequentially continuous functional and a purely (strongly) continuous functional. Moreover, several applications of the results to measure extension are given.     

A note on ball-covering property of Banach spaces

By a ball-covering B of a Banach space X, we mean that B is a collection of open (or closed) balls off the origin whose union contains the unit sphere SX of X; and X is said to have the ball-covering property (BCP) provided it admits a ball-covering by countably many balls. In this note we give a natural example showing that the ball-covering property of a Banach space is not inherited by its subspaces; and we present a sharp quantitative version of the recent Fonf and Zanco renorming result saying that if the dual X^∗ of X is w^∗ separable, then for every ε>0 there exist a (1+ε)-equivalent norm on X, and an R>0 such that in this new norm SX admits a ball-covering by countably many balls of radius R. Namely, we show that R=R(ε) can be taken arbitrarily close to (1+ε)/ε, and that for X=?₁[0,1] the corresponding R cannot be equal to 1/ε. This gives the sharp order of magnitude for R(ε) as ε→0.     

Unitary part of a contraction

For a contraction A on a Hilbert space H, we define the index j(A) (resp., k(A)) as the smallest nonnegative integer j (resp., k) such that ker(I−Aj∗Aj) (resp., ker(I−Ak*Ak)∩ker(I−AkAk∗)) equals the subspace of H on which the unitary part of A acts. We show that if , then j(A)?n (resp., k(A)?⌈n/2⌉), and the equality holds if and only if A is of class Sn (resp., one of the three conditions is true: (1) A is of class Sn, (2) n is even and A is completely nonunitary with ‖An−2‖=1 and ‖An−1‖<1, and (3) n is even and A=U⊕A^′, where U is unitary on a one-dimensional space and A^′ is of class Sn−1).     

Fixed point properties of semigroups of nonexpansive mappings

We prove that if H is a Hilbert space then the Schatten (trace) class operators on H has the weak^∗ fixed point property for left reversible semigroups. This answered positively a problem raised by A.T.-M. Lau. We also prove that if M is a finite von Neumann algebra then any nonempty bounded convex subset of the non-commutative L¹-space associated to M that is compact for the measure topology has the fixed point property for left reversible semigroups.     

Dirichlet and VMOA domains via Schwarzian derivative

Short proofs of the following results concerning a bounded conformal map g of the unit disc D are presented: (1) logg^′ belongs to the Dirichlet space if and only if the Schwarzian derivative Sg of g satisfies Sg(z)(1−²|z|)∈L²(D); (2) logg^′∈VMOA if and only if ²|Sg(z)|³(1−²|z|) is a vanishing Carleson measure on D. Analogous results for Besov and Qp,0 spaces are also given.     

Fixed point property for Banach algebras associated to locally compact groups

In this paper we investigate when various Banach algebras associated to a locally compact group G have the weak or weak^∗ fixed point property for left reversible semigroups. We proved, for example, that if G is a separable locally compact group with a compact neighborhood of the identity invariant under inner automorphisms, then the Fourier-Stieltjes algebra of G has the weak^∗ fixed point property for left reversible semigroups if and only if G is compact. This generalizes a classical result of T.C. Lim for the case when G is the circle group T.     

On convergence of closed convex sets

In this paper we introduce a convergence concept for closed convex subsets of a finite-dimensional normed vector space. This convergence is called C-convergence. It is defined by appropriate notions of upper and lower limits. We compare this convergence with the well-known Painlevé-Kuratowski convergence and with scalar convergence. In fact, we show that a sequence (An)_n∈NC-converges to A if and only if the corresponding support functions converge pointwise, except at relative boundary points of the domain of the support function of A, to the support function of A.     

Decomposition rank and absorbing extensions of type I algebras

We prove the following: Let A and B be separable C^*-algebras. Suppose that B is a type I C^*-algebra such that

(i)

B has only infinite dimensional irreducible *-representations, and

(ii)

B has finite decomposition rank.

If

0→B→C→A→0     

Multilinear commutators of Calderón-Zygmund operators on Hardy-type spaces with non-doubling measures

Under the assumption that μ is a non-negative Radon measure on Rd which only satisfies some growth condition, the authors obtain the boundedness in some Hardy-type spaces of multilinear commutators generated by Calderón-Zygmund operators or fractional integrals with RBMO(μ) functions, where the Hardy-type spaces are some appropriate subspaces, associated to the considered RBMO(μ) functions, of the Hardy space H¹(μ) of Tolsa.     

Some properties of rapidly varying sequences

We investigate the class R∞,s of rapidly varying sequences from different points of view. It is shown: (1) a sequence (cn)_n∈N of positive real numbers is rapidly varying if and only if the corresponding function x→c[x], x?1, is rapidly varying; (2) the class R∞,s satisfies some selection properties, as well as game-theoretical and Ramsey-theoretical conditions.     

A Morita theorem for dual operator algebras

We prove that two dual operator algebras are weak^∗ Morita equivalent in the sense of [D.P. Blecher, U. Kashyap, Morita equivalence of dual operator algebras, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 212 (2008) 2401-2412] if and only if they have equivalent categories of dual operator modules via completely contractive functors which are also weak^∗-continuous on appropriate morphism spaces. Moreover, in a fashion similar to the operator algebra case, we characterize such functors as the module normal Haagerup tensor product with an appropriate weak^∗ Morita equivalence bimodule. We also develop the theory of the W^∗-dilation, which connects the non-selfadjoint dual operator algebra with the W^∗-algebraic framework. In the case of weak^∗ Morita equivalence, this W^∗-dilation is a W^∗-module over a von Neumann algebra generated by the non-selfadjoint dual operator algebra. The theory of the W^∗-dilation is a key part of the proof of our main theorem.     

Numerical radius and zero pattern of matrices

Let A be an n×n complex matrix and r be the maximum size of its principal submatrices with no off-diagonal zero entries. Suppose A has zero main diagonal and x is a unit n-vector. Then, letting ‖A‖ be the Frobenius norm of A, we show that

|〈Ax,x〉^|2?(1−1/2r−1/2n)‖A^‖2.