Using methods of R.J.Tauer we exhibit an uncountable family of singular masas in the hyperfinite $\textrm{II}_1$ factor $\R$ all with Pukánszky invariant $\{1\}$, no pair of which are conjugate by an automorphism of $R$. This is done by introducing an invariant $Γ(A)$ for a masa $A$ in a \IIi factor $N$ as the maximal size of a projection $e\in A$ for which $A e$ contains non-trivial centralising sequences for $eN e$. The masas produced give rise to a continuous map from the interval $[0,1]$ into the singular masas in $\R$ equiped with the $d_{\infty,2}$-metric.
A result is also given showing that the Pukánszky invariant is $d_{\infty,2}$-upper semi-continuous. As a consequence, the sets of masas with Pukánszky invariant $\{n\}$ are all closed.
In this paper, we give examples of maximal amenable subalgebras of the free group factor of two generators. More precisely, we consider two copies of the hyperfinite factor $R_i$ of type $\mathrm{II}_1$. From each $R_i$, we take a Haar unitary $u_i$ which generates a Cartan subalgebra of it. We show that the von Neumann subalgebra generated by the self-adjoint operator $u_1+u_1^{-1}+u_2+u_2^{-1}$ is maximal amenable in the free product. This provides infinitely many non-unitary conjugate maximal amenable MASAs.
In 1965 Tauer produced a countably infinite family of semi-regular masas in the hyperfinite $\mathrm{II}_1$ factor, no pair of which are conjugate by an automorphism. This was achieved by iterating the process of passing to the algebra generated by the normalisers and, for each $n\in\mathbb N$, finding masas for which this procedure terminates at the $n$-th stage. Such masas are said to have length $n$. In this paper we consider a transfinite version of this idea, giving rise to a notion of ordinal valued length. We show that all countable ordinals arise as lengths of semi-regular masas in the…
Let A be a maximal abelian self-adjoint subalgebra (masa) in a type II_1 factor M acting via standard representation on L^2(M). The abelian von Neumann algebra A generated by A and JAJ has a type I commutant which contains the projection e_A from L^2(M) onto L^2(A). Then A'(1-e_A) decomposes into a direct sum of type I_n algebras for n in {1,2,...,\infty}, and those n's which occur in the direct sum form a set called the Pukanszky invariant, Puk(A), also denoted Puk_M(A) when the containing factor is ambiguous. In this paper we show that this invariant can take on the values S\cup {\infty} whe…
In this paper we study relations between the \emph{left-right-measure} and properties of singular masas. Part of the analysis is mainly concerned with masas for which the \emph{left-right-measure} is the class of product measure. We provide examples of Tauer masas in the hyperfinite $\rm{II}_{1}$ factor whose \emph{left-right-measure} is the class of Lebesgue measure. We show that for each subset $S\subseteq \mathbb{N}$, there exist uncountably many pairwise non conjugate singular masas in the free group factors with \emph{Pukánszky invariant} $S\cup\{\infty\}$.
Two classical theorems in matrix theory, due to Schur and Horn, relate the eigenvalues of a self-adjoint matrix to the diagonal entries. These have recently been given a formulation in the setting of operator algebras as the Schur-Horn problem, where matrix algebras and diagonals are replaced respectively by finite factors and maximal abelian self-adjoint subalgebras (masas). There is a special case of the problem, called the carpenter problem, which can be stated as follows: for a masa A in a finite factor M with conditional expectation E_A, can each x in A with 0 <= x <= 1 be expressed as E_…
In 1960 Pukánszky introduced an invariant associating to every masa in a separable $\mathrm{II}_1$ factor a non-empty subset of $\mathbb N\cup\{\infty\}$. This invariant examines the multiplicity structure of the von Neumann algebra generated by the left-right action of the masa. In this paper it is shown that every non-empty subset of $\mathbb N\cup\{\infty\}$ arises as the Pukánszky invariant of some masa in a separable McDuff $\mathrm{II}_1$ factor which contains a masa with Pukánszky invariant $\{1\}$. In particular the hyperfinite $\mathrm{II}_1$ factor and all separable McDuff $\mathrm{I…
In this paper we introduce and study strongly singular maximal abelian self-adjoint subalgebras of type $II_1$ factors. We show that certain elements of free groups and of non-elementary hyperbolic groups generate such masas, and these also give new examples of masas for which Popa's invariant delta is 1. We also explore the connection between Popa's invariant and strong singularity.
A singular masa $A$ in a $\rm{II}_{1}$ factor $N$ is defined by the property that any unitary $w\in N$ for which $A=wAw^*$ must lie in $A$. A strongly singular masa $A$ is one that satisfies the inequality $$\| E_A- E_{wAw^*}\|_{\infty,2}\geq\|w- E_A(w)\|_2$$ for all unitaries $w\in N$, where $E_A$ is the conditional expectation of $N$ onto $A$, and $\|\cdot\|_{\infty,2}$ is defined for bounded maps $ϕ:N\to N$ by $\sup\{\|ϕ(x)\|_2:x\in N, \|x\|\leq 1\}$. Strong singularity easily implies singularity, and the main result of this paper shows the reverse implication.
We show that any type ${\rm III_1}$ factor with separable predual satisfying Connes' Bicentralizer Property (CBP) has a singular maximal abelian $\ast$-subalgebra that is the range of a normal conditional expectation. We also investigate stability properties of CBP under finite index extensions/restrictions of type ${\rm III_1}$ factors.
We investigate maximal abelian subalgebras (masas) in separably acting type $II_1$ factors. We use the notion of distance between masas which we introduced in an earlier paper in this archive, OA/0107075. The main result of the paper is to show that for any unitary u and a masa A, the distance between A and uAu* is comparable to the distance in 2-norm from u to the unitary normalizer N(A) of A. In qualitative terms, this says that a unitary almost normalizes A if and only if it is close to a normalizing unitary. Inequalities in the paper make this statement quantitatively precise. As a consequ…
The Laplacian (or radial) masa in a free group factor is generated by the sum of the generators and their inverses. We show that such a masa B is strongly singular and has Popa invariant delta(B) = 1. This is achieved by proving that the conditional expectation onto B is an asymptotic homomorphism. We also obtain similar results for the free product of discrete groups, each of which contains an element of infinite order.
Let $Γ$ be a countable group and let $Γ_0$ be an infinite abelian subgroup of $Γ$. We prove that if the pair $(Γ,Γ_0)$ satisfies some combinatorial condition called (SS), then the abelian subalgebra $A=L(Γ_0)$ is a singular MASA in $M=L(Γ)$ which satisfies a weakly mixing condition. If moreover it satisfies a stronger condition called (ST), then it provides a singular MASA with a strictly stronger mixing property. We describe families of examples of both types coming from free products, HNN extentions and semidirect products, and in particular we exhibit examples of singular MASA's that satisf…
In this paper, we present a new class of strongly singular maximal abelian subalgebras living inside the k-folded tensor product of the free group factor (on N>1 generators). A. Sinclair and R. Smith introduced the class of strongly singular maximal abelian von Neumann algebras (MASA) of type II_1 factors. One of their examples was the Laplacian subalgebra of the free group factor, known to be a singularMASA. Using the techniques presented by A. Sinclair and R.Smith, we show that the Laplacian subalgebra of the k-folded tensor product of the free group factor with itself is a strongly singular…
The measure-multiplicity-invariant for masas in $\rm{II}_{1}$ factors was introduced in \cite{MR2261688} to distinguish masas that have the same Pukánszky invariant. In this paper we study the measure class in the measure-multiplicity-invariant. This is equivalent to studying the standard Hilbert space as an associated bimodule. We characterize the type of any masa depending on the left-right-measure using Baire category methods (selection principle of Jankov and von Neumann). We present a second proof of Chifan's result on normalisers and a measure theoretic proof of the equivalence of weak a…
We consider an iterative procedure for constructing maximal abelian $^*$-subalgebras (MASAs) satisfying prescribed properties in II$_1$ factors. This method pairs well with the intertwining by bimodules technique and with properties of the MASA and of the ambient factor that can be described locally. We obtain such a local characterization for II$_1$ factors $M$ that have an {\it s-MASA}, $A\subset M$ (i.e., for which $A \vee JAJ$ is maximal abelian in $\Cal B(L^2M)$), and use this strategy to prove that any factor in this class has uncountably many non-intertwinable singular (respectively sem…
This paper studies weakly mixing (singular) and mixing masas in type $\rm{II}_{1}$ factors from a bimodule point of view. Several necessary and sufficient conditions to characterize the normalizing algebra of a masa are presented. We also study the structure of mixing inclusions, with special attention paid to masas of product class. A recent result of Jolissaint and Stalder concerning mixing masas arising out of inclusions of groups is revisited. One consequence of our structural results rules out the existence of certain Koopman-realizable measures, arising from semidirect products, which ar…
We prove that if $A$ is a singular MASA in a II$_1$ factor $M$ and $ω$ is a free ultrafilter, then for any $x\in M\ominus A$, with $\|x\|\leq 1$, and any $n\geq 2$, there exists a partition of $1$ with projections $p_1, p_2, ..., p_n\in A^ω$ (i.e. a {\it paving}) such that $\|Σ_{i=1}^n p_i x p_i\|\leq 2\sqrt{n-1}/n$, and give examples where this is sharp. Some open problems on optimal pavings are discussed.
We examine the notion of $α$-strong singularity for subfactors of a \IIi factor, which is a metric quantity that relates the distance between a unitary in the factor and a subalgebra with the distance between that subalgebra and its unitary conjugate. Through planar algebra techniques, we demonstrate the existence of a finite index singular subfactor of the hyperfinite \IIi factor that cannot be strongly singular with $α=1$, in contrast to the case for masas. Using work of Popa, Sinclair, and Smith, we show that there exists an absolute constant $0<c<1$ such that all singular subfactors are $c…
In this paper, we exhibit strongly singular maximal abelian subalgebras living inside certain k-folded tensors of von Neumann group factors. The two classes of groups under consideration are the free groups of rank greater than 2 and the free product of m>2 groups, all finite and having the same order p>2 (m>p-1). We prove actually more, namely that the unique trace preserving conditional expectations from these group factors onto their Laplacian subalgebras are asymptotic homomorphisms, which in turn implies that the subalgebras are strongly singular masas.
We investigate the singular subspace of an inclusion of tracial von Neumann algebras. The singular subspace is a canonical N-N subbimodule of L^{2}(M) and it contains the quasinormalizer introduced by Popa, one-sided quasinormalizer introduced by Fang-Gao-Smith, and wq-normalizer introduced in Galatan-Popa (following upon work in Ioana-Peterson-Popa and Popa). We then obtain a weak notion of regularity (called spectral regularity) by demanding that the singular subspace of N in M generates M. By abstracting Voiculescu's original proof of absence of Cartan subalgebras, we show that there can be…
