Recasting the Elliott conjecture

Let A be a simple, unital, finite, and exact C^*-algebra which absorbs the Jiang–Su algebra tensorially. We prove that the Cuntz semigroup of A admits a complete order embedding into an ordered semigroup which is 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— -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 -stable C^*-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 -theoretic invariants will classify separable and nuclear C^*-algebras—with the recent appearance of counterexamples to its strongest concrete form. Research supported by the DGI MEC-FEDER through Project MTM2005-00934, and the Comissionat per Universitats i Recerca de la Generalitat de Catalunya. A. S. Toms was also supported in part by an NSERC Discovery Grant.