We analyze the decomposition rank (a notion of covering dimension for nuclear $C^*$-algebras introduced by E. Kirchberg and the author) of subhomogeneous $C^*$-algebras. In particular we show that a subhomogeneous $C^*$-algebra has decomposition rank $n$ if and only if it is recursive subhomogeneous of topological dimension $n$ and that $n$ is determined by the primitive ideal space. As an application, we use recent results of Q. Lin and N. C. Phillips to show the following: Let $A$ be the crossed product $C^*$-algebra coming from a compact smooth manifold and a minimal diffeomorphism. Then the decomposition rank of $A$ is dominated by the covering dimension of the underlying manifold.
It is shown that every Jiang-Su stable approximately subhomogeneous C*-algebra has finite decomposition rank. Previously, it was not even known that such algebras have finite nuclear dimension. A key step in the proof is that subhomogeneous C*-algebra are locally approximated by a certain class of more tractable subhomogeneous algebras, namely, a non-commutative generalization of the class of cell complexes. The result is applied to show that Jiang-Su stable minimal Z-crossed products have finite decomposition rank.
We show that finitely generated subhomogeneous C*-algebras have finite decomposition rank. As a consequence, any separable ASH C*-algebra can be written as an inductive limit of subhomogeneous C*-algebras each of which has finite decomposition rank. It then follows from work of H. Lin and of the second named author that the class of simple unital ASH algebras which have real rank zero and absorb the Jiang-Su algebra tensorially satisfies the Elliott conjecture.
We introduce a class of recursive subhomogeneous algebras that we call diagonal subhomogeneous and we give a notion of diagonal maps between these algebras. We show that any simple limit of diagonal subhomogeneous algebras with diagonal maps has stable rank one. As an application we show that for any minimal homeomorphism of a compact Hausdorff space the associated crossed product has stable rank one.
A classification is given of certain separable nuclear C*-algebras not necessarily of real rank zero, namely the class of simple C*-algebras which are inductive limits of continuous-trace C*-algebras whose building blocks have their spectrum homeomorphic to the interval [0,1] or to a finite disjoint union of closed intervals. In particular, a classification of those stably AI algebras which are inductive limits of hereditary sub-C*-algebras of interval algebras is obtained. Also, the range of the invariant is calculated.
We compute the generator rank of a subhomgeneous C*-algebra in terms of the covering dimension of the pieces of its primitive ideal space corresponding to irreducible representations of a fixed dimension. We deduce that every Z-stable ASH-algebra has generator rank one, which means that a generic element in such an algebra is a generator. This leads to a strong solution of the generator problem for classifiable, simple, nuclear C*-algebras: a generic element in each such algebra is a generator. Examples of Villadsen show that this is not the case for all separable, simple, nuclear C*-algebras.
Let A be a unital simple direct limit of recursive subhomogeneous C*-algebras with no dimension growth. We give criteria which specify exactly when A has real rank zero, and exactly when A has the Property (SP): every nonzero hereditary subalgebra of A contains a nonzero projection. Specifically, A has real rank zero if and only if the natural map from K_0 (A) to the continuous affine functions on the tracial state space has dense range, A has the Property (SP) if and only if the range of this map contains strictly positive functions with arbitrarily small norm. By comparison with results for …
We consider unital simple inductive limits of generalized dimension drop C*-algebras They are so-called ASH-algebras and include all unital simple AH-algebras and all dimension drop $C^*$-algebras. Suppose that $A$ is one of these C*-algebras. We show that $A\otimes Q$ has tracial rank no more than one, where $Q$ is the rational UHF-algebra. As a consequence, we obtain the following classification result: Let $A$ and $B$ be two unital simple inductive limits of generalized dimension drop algebras with no dimension growth. Then $A\cong B$ if and only if they have the same Elliott invariant.
We prove the following results for a unital simple direct limit $A$ of recursive subhomogeneous algebras with no dimension growth: (1) A has stable rank 1. (2) The projections in $M_{\infty} (A)$ satisfy cancellation: if $e \oplus q \sim f \oplus q$, then $e \sim f$. (3) $A$ satisfies Blackadar's Second Fundamental Comparability Question: if $p, q \in M_{\infty} (A)$ are projections such that $τ(p) < τ(q)$ for all normalized traces $τ$ on $A$, then $p$ is equivalent to a subprojection of $q$. (4) $K_0 (A)$ is unperforated for the strict order: if $η\in K_0 (A)$ and there is $n > 0$ such that $…
In this paper, we introduce stable recursive subhomogeneous algebras (SRSHAs), which is analogous to recursive subhomogeneous algebras (RSHAs) introduced by N. C. Phillips in the studies of free minimal integer actions on compact metric spaces. The difference between the stable version and the none stable version is that the irreducible representations of SRSHAs are infinite dimensional, but the irreducible representations of the RSHAs are finite dimensional. While RSHAs play an important role in the study of free minimal integer actions on compact metric spaces, SRSHAs play an analogous role …
We introduce and characterize a particularly tractable class of unital type 1 C*-algebras with bounded dimension of irreducible representations. Algebras in this class are called recursive subhomogeneous algebras, and they have an inductive description (through iterated pullbacks) which allows one to carry over from algebras of the form C (X, M_n) many of the constructions relevant in the study of the stable rank and K-theory of simple direct limits of homogeneous C*-algebras. Our characterization implies in particular that if A is a separable C*-algebra whose irreducible representations all h…
This is a survey article describing the proof that the crossed product C^* (Z, M, h) of a compact smooth manifold M by a minimal diffeomorphism h of M is isomorphic to a direct limit of recursive subhomogeneous C*-algebras.
We show that group C*-algebras of finitely generated, nilpotent groups have finite nuclear dimension. It then follows, from a string of deep results, that the C*-algebra $A$ generated by an irreducible representation of such a group has decomposition rank at most 3. If, in addition, $A$ satisfies the universal coefficient theorem, another string of deep results shows it is classifiable by its Elliott invariant and is approximately subhomogeneous. We give a large class of irreducible representations of nilpotent groups (of arbitrarily large nilpotency class) that satisfy the universal coefficie…
Let $A$ be a separable, unital, simple C*-algebra with stable rank one. We show that every strictly positive, lower semicontinuous, affine function on the simplex of normalized quasitraces of $A$ is realized as the rank of an operator in the stabilization of $A$. Assuming moreover that $A$ has locally finite nuclear dimension, we deduce that $A$ is $\mathcal{Z}$-stable if and only if it has strict comparison of positive elements. In particular, the Toms-Winter conjecture holds for separable, unital, simple, approximately subhomogeneous C*-algebras with stable rank one.
We show that, if A is a separable simple unital C*-algebra which absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially and which has real rank zero and finite decomposition rank, then A is tracially AF in the sense of Lin, without any restriction on the tracial state space. As a consequence, the Elliott conjecture is true for the class of C*-algebras as above which, additionally, satisfy the Universal Coefficients Theorem. In particular, such algebras are completely determined by their ordered K-theory. They are approximately homogeneous of topological dimension less than or equal to 3, approximately sub…
We examine the ranks of operators in semi-finite C*-algebras as measured by their densely defined lower semicontinuous traces. We first prove that a unital simple C*-algebra whose extreme tracial boundary is nonempty and finite contains positive operators of every possible rank, independent of the property of strict comparison. We then turn to nonunital simple algebras and establish criteria that imply that the Cuntz semigroup is recovered functorially from the Murray-von Neumann semigroup and the space of densely defined lower semicontinuous traces. Finally, we prove that these criteria are s…
We show that unital simple C*-algebras with tracial topological rank zero which are locally approximated by subhomogeneous C^-algebras can be classified by their ordered $K$-theory. We apply this classification result to show that certain simple crossed products are isomorphic if they have the same ordered $K$-theory. In particular, irrational higher dimensional non-commutative tori of the form $C({\mathbb T}^k)\times_θ{\mathbb Z}$ are in fact inductive limits of circle algebras.
We introduce a subclass of recursive subhomogeneous algebras, in which each of the pullback maps is diagonal in a suitable sense. We define the notion of a diagonal map between two such algebras and show that every simple inductive limit of these algebras with diagonal bonding maps has stable rank one. As an application, we prove that for any infinite compact metric space $T$ and minimal homeomorphism $h\colon T\to T$, the associated dynamical crossed product $\mathrm{C^*}(\mathbb{Z},T,h)$ has stable rank one. This affirms a conjecture of Archey, Niu, and Phillips. We also show that the Toms-W…
We calculate the real rank and stable rank of CCR algebras which either have only finite dimensional irreducible representations or have finite topological dimension. We show that either rank of A is determined in a good way by the ranks of an ideal I and the quotient A/I in four cases: When A is CCR; when I has only finite dimensional irreducible representations; when I is separable, of generalized continuous trace and finite topological dimension, and all irreducible representations of I are infinite dimensional; or when I is separable, stable, has an approximate identity consisting of proje…
It is shown that a C*-algebra of the form C(X,U), where U is a UHF algebra, is not an inductive limit of subhomogeneous C*-algebras of topological dimension less than that of X. This is in sharp contrast to dimension-reduction phenomenon in (i) simple inductive limits of such algebras, where classification implies low-dimensional approximations, and (ii) when dimension is measured using decomposition rank, as the author and Winter proved that dr(C(X,U)) $\leq$ 2.
We introduce the growth rank of a C*-algebra, a (N \cup {\infty})-valued invariant which measures how far an algebra is from absorbing the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially. We prove that its range is exhausted by simple nuclear C*-algebras, and obtain in the process a well developed theory of unbounded dimension growth for approximately homogeneous (AH) algebras. Another consequence of the range result is the existence of a simple, nuclear, and non-Z-stable C*-algebra which is not tensorially prime. The properties of the growth rank suggest a universal property which may be considered inside any…
We introduce a notion of covering dimension for Cuntz semigroups of C*-algebras. This dimension is always bounded by the nuclear dimension of the C*-algebra, and for subhomogeneous C*-algebras both dimensions agree. Cuntz semigroups of Z-stable C*-algebras have dimension at most one. Further, the Cuntz semigroup of a simple, Z-stable C*-algebra is zero-dimensional if and only if the C*-algebra has real rank zero or is stably projectionless.
We show that separable, simple, unital C*-algebras with finite decomposition rank absorb the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially. This has a number of consequences for Elliott's program to classify nuclear C*-algebras by their K-theory data. In particular, it completes the classification of C*-algebras associated to uniquely ergodic, smooth, minimal dynamical systems by their ordered K-groups.
In this paper we consider the decomposition of positive semidefinite matrices as a sum of rank one matrices. We introduce and investigate the properties of various measures of optimality of such decompositions. For some classes of positive semidefinite matrices we give explicitly these optimal decompositions. These classes include diagonally dominant matrices and certain of their generalizations, $2\times 2$, and a class of $3\times 3$ matrices.
We show that for a large class of C*-algebras $\mathcal{A}$, containing arbitrary direct limits of separable type I C*-algebras, the following statement holds: If $A\in \mathcal{A}$ and $B$ is a simple projectionless C*-algebra with trivial K-groups that can be written as a direct limit of a system of (nonunital) recursive subhomogeneous algebras with no dimension growth then the stable rank of $A\otimes B$ is one. As a consequence we show that if $A\in \mathcal A$ then the stable rank of $A\otimes\mathcal W$ is one. We also prove the following stronger result: If $A$ is separable C*-algebra t…
We show that C*-algebras of the form C(X) \otimes Z, where X is compact and Hausdorff and Z denotes the Jiang--Su algebra, have decomposition rank at most 2. This amounts to a dimension reduction result for C*-bundles with sufficiently regular fibres. It establishes an important case of a conjecture on the fine structure of nuclear C*-algebras of Toms and the second named author, even in a nonsimple setting, and gives evidence that the topological dimension of noncommutative spaces is governed by fibres rather than base spaces.
We introduce the notion of locally finite decomposition rank, a structural property shared by many stably finite nuclear C*-algebras. The concept is particularly relevant for Elliott's program to classify nuclear C*-algebras by K-theory data. We study some of its properties and show that a simple unital C*-algebra, which has locally finite decomposition rank, real rank zero and which absorbs the Jiang-Su algebra Z tensorially, has tracial rank zero in the sense of Lin. As a consequence, any such C*-algebra, if it additionally satisfies the Universal Coefficients Theorem, is approximately homog…
In this paper, we consider the real rank zero $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras which can be written as an inductive limit of the Elliott-Thomsen building blocks and prove a decomposition result for the connecting homomorphisms; this technique will be used in the classification theorem.
Let A be a unital separable simple C*-algebra with a unique tracial state. We prove that if A is nuclear and quasidiagonal, then A tensored with the universal UHF-algebra has decomposition rank at most one. Then it is proved that A is nuclear, quasidiagonal and has strict comparison if and only if A has finite decomposition rank. For such A, we also give a direct proof that A tensored with a UHF-algebra has tracial rank zero. Applying this characterization, we obtain a counter-example to the Powers-Sakai conjecture.
We prove that every unital stably finite simple amenable $C^*$-algebra $A$ with finite nuclear dimension and with UCT such that every trace is quasi-diagonal has the property that $A\otimes Q$ has generalized tracial rank at most one, where $Q$ is the universal UHF-algebra. Consequently, $A$ is classifiable in the sense of Elliott.
Let $A$ be a unital simple separable C*-algebra satisfying the UCT. Assume that $\mathrm{dr}(A)<+\infty$, $A$ is Jiang-Su stable, and $\mathrm{K}_0(A)\otimes \mathbb{Q}\cong \mathbb{Q}$. Then $A$ is an ASH algebra (indeed, $A$ is a rationally AH algebra).
We consider 2-positive almost order zero (disjointness preserving) maps on C*-algebras. Generalizing the argument of M. Choi for multiplicative domains, we give an internal characterization of almost order zero for 2-positive maps. It is also shown that complete positivity can be reduced to 2-positivity in the definition of decomposition rank for unital separable C*-algebras.
We show that inductive limits of virtually nilpotent groups have strongly quasidiagonal C*-algebras, extending results of the first author on solvable virtually nilpotent groups. We use this result to show that the decomposition rank of the group C*-algebra of a finitely generated virtually nilpotent group $G$ is bounded by $2\cdot h(G)!-1$, where $h(G)$ is the Hirsch length of $G.$ This extends and sharpens results of the first and third authors on finitely generated nilpotent groups. It then follows that if a C*-algebra generated by an irreducible representation of a virtually nilpotent grou…
