Classification of a Class of Crossed Product C*-Algebras Associated
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Journal of Functional Analysis 260 (2011) 2815–2825 www.elsevier.com/locate/jfa Classification of a class of crossed product C∗-algebras associated with residually finite groups José R. Carrión Department of Mathematics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States Received 7 August 2010; accepted 1 February 2011 Communicated by D. Voiculescu Abstract A residually finite group acts on a profinite completion by left translation. We consider the corresponding ∗ crossed product C -algebra for discrete countable groups that are central extensions of finitely generated abelian groups by finitely generated abelian groups (these are automatically residually finite). We prove that all such crossed products are classifiable by K-theoretic invariants using techniques from the classification ∗ theory for nuclear C -algebras. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ∗ Keywords: Classification of C -algebras; Crossed product; Residually finite group; C(X)-algebra; Decomposition rank; Generalized Bunce–Deddens algebra 1. Introduction In [16] Orfanos introduced a class of C∗-algebras generalizing the classical Bunce–Deddens algebras [4]. These generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras can be constructed starting with any discrete, countable, amenable and residually finite group—the construction yields the classical Bunce–Deddens algebras when starting with Z.TheyareC∗-algebras of the form C(G)˜ G, where G acts on a profinite completion G˜ by left translation. From the point of view of the classification theory for nuclear C∗-algebras [10,23], these C∗-algebras enjoy many desirable properties: they are simple, separable, nuclear and quasidiagonal; they have real rank zero, stable rank one, unique trace and comparability of projections (see [16]). E-mail address: [email protected]. 0022-1236/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jfa.2011.02.002 2816 J.R. Carrión / Journal of Functional Analysis 260 (2011) 2815–2825 In this note we prove that the generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras associated with a discrete, countable and residually finite group G that is a central extension of a finitely generated abelian group by a finitely generated abelian group have finite decomposition rank (Proposition 2.1). This result covers all the profinite completions of G, see Section 2. For this, we will use that the decomposition rank of a C(X)-algebra is finite as long as X has finite covering dimension and the decomposition rank of the fibers is uniformly bounded (Lemma 3.1). We are then free to use powerful theorems of Lin and Winter [14,25] to observe that the generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras associated with such groups G are classified by K-theory. The above class of groups contains some examples of interest, such as the integer Heisenberg group (of any dimension). It is also shown that the decomposition rank of C∗(G) is finite for all such groups (Theorem 2.2). The classical Bunce–Deddens algebras were classified by Bunce and Deddens along the same lines as the Uniformly Hyperfinite (UHF) algebras. Tensor products of Bunce–Deddens algebras were classified by Pasnicu in [18]. In both cases the algebras in question are inductive limits of circle algebras—in fact, of algebras of the form C(T) ⊗ Mr . The trivial observation that these algebras have slow dimension growth (owing to the fact that T has covering dimension equal to 1) can be used to subsume these results under subsequent and very general classification theorems ([8,5], see also [23, Theorem 3.3.1]). In the present case, the algebras in question are inductive limits of C∗-algebras of the form ∗ C (L) ⊗ Mr for certain (usually non-abelian) subgroups L ⊂ G. In the place of covering dimen- sion we use decomposition rank, a noncommutative analog of covering dimension introduced by Kirchberg and Winter [13]. Let C be the class of all unital, separable and simple C∗-algebras A with real rank zero and finite decomposition rank that satisfy the Universal Coefficient Theorem, and such that ∂eT(A), the extreme boundary of the tracial state space, is compact and zero-dimensional. The Elliott invariant for such algebras is their ordered K-theory: + Ell(A) = K0(A), K0(A) , [1A]0,K1(A) . (See [10] for the general version of the Elliott invariant.) A combination of results of Lin and Winter gives: Theorem 1.1. (See [25, Corollary 6.5].) Let A,B ∈ C. Then A =∼ B if and only if Ell(A) =∼ Ell(B). In the early 1990s Elliott [7] initiated a program to classify nuclear C∗-algebras and conjec- tured such a result (for a larger class and with a refined invariant, including for example the space of tracial states). One aim of this paper is to show that the class of generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras associated with a large collection of groups is a natural example where the program succeeds. This paper has three additional sections. In Section 2 we recall the relevant definitions, state our main result (Theorem 2.3) and the key technical result behind its proof (Proposition 2.1). In Section 3 we recall the definition of decomposition rank and prove a lemma concerned with the decomposition rank of C(X)-algebras. Section 4 contains the proof of Proposition 2.1. The proof uses a continuous field structure of certain group C∗-algebras due to Packer and Raeburn [17]. The decomposition rank such a group C∗-algebra is estimated in terms of the ranks of the normal subgroup and its quotient (Theorem 2.2). For this, we use a result of Poguntke [20] concerning the structure of twisted group algebras of abelian groups. The decomposition rank of these twisted J.R. Carrión / Journal of Functional Analysis 260 (2011) 2815–2825 2817 group algebras is then estimated using the decomposition rank of noncommutative tori, for which we provide an estimate in Lemma 4.4. 2. Main results We first recall Orfanos’ definition of a generalized Bunce–Deddens algebra. Let G be a dis- crete, countable and amenable group. Assume also that G is residually finite, so that there is a nested sequence of finite index, normal subgroups of G with trivial intersection. Let G ⊃ L1 ⊃ L2 ⊃ ··· be such a sequence. The profinite completion of G with respect to this sequence is the inverse limit ˜ G = lim←− G/Li with connecting maps xLi+1 → xLi . This is a compact, Hausdorff and totally disconnected group. The group G acts by left multiplication. The corresponding crossed product C(G)˜ G is called a generalized Bunce–Deddens algebra associated with G. For example, let q = (qi) be a sequence of positive integers with qi|qi+1 for every i. With G = Z and Li = qiZ, the above construction yields the usual Bunce–Deddens algebra of type q. Let G be the collection of all (discrete) groups G with the following property: there exist finitely generated abelian groups N and Q such that G is a central extension 1 → N → G → Q → 1(1) (where by “central” we mean that the image of N lies in the center of G). A celebrated theorem of Hall [22, 15.4.1] states that a finitely generated group that is an extension of an abelian group by a nilpotent group is residually finite. The groups in G are therefore residually finite. They are also amenable, as an extension of amenable groups is itself amenable. As noted in the introduction, G contains the integer Heisenberg groups of all dimensions (see Example 2.4 below). Proposition 2.1. If G ∈ G, then any generalized Bunce–Deddens algebra C(G)˜ G associated with G has finite decomposition rank. (This covers all profinite completions G˜ of G.) See Section 3 for the definition of decomposition rank and Section 4 for the proof. One ingre- dient of its proof is the following result, also proved in Section 4. Theorem 2.2. Let G be a countable, discrete group that is a central extension 1 → N → G → Q → 1 where N and Q are finitely generated abelian groups of ranks n and m, respectively. Then ∗ dr C (G) (n + 1) 2m2 + 4m + 1 − 1. Our main result can now be stated as: 2818 J.R. Carrión / Journal of Functional Analysis 260 (2011) 2815–2825 Theorem 2.3. The generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras C(G)˜ G associated with groups G ∈ G are classified by their Elliott invariant. Proof. Corollary 7 and Theorem 12 of [16] show that all generalized Bunce–Deddens algebras are unital, separable, simple, and that they have real rank zero and unique trace. By Proposi- tion 2.1 the ones associated with groups in G have finite decomposition rank, so they satisfy the hypothesis of the classification Theorem 1.1. 2 Example 2.4. Fix a positive integer m. Define H2m+1 as the group of all square matrices of size m + 2 of the form ⎛ ⎞ 1 xt z ⎝ ⎠ 01m y 001 m where x,y ∈ Z , z ∈ Z, and 1m is the identity matrix in Mm. This is a discrete, countable and residually finite group. Indeed, let (qi) be a sequence of positive integers such that qi|qi+1 for m all i. For each i let Li be the subgroup of H2m+1 consisting of those matrices with x,y ∈ (qiZ) and z ∈ qiZ. This provides a nested sequence of finite index, normal subgroups with trivial inter- section. Moreover, H2m+1 is a central extension 2m 1 → Z → H2m+1 → Z → 1, as one can check (notice that the center of H2m+1 is generated by the matrix with x = y = 0 and z = 1). Thus H2m+1 ∈ G.