We show that if G is an amenable group and H is a hyperbolic group, then the free product $G\ast H$ is weakly amenable. A key ingredient in the proof is the fact that $G\ast H$ is orbit equivalent to $\mathbb{Z}\ast H$ .

We consider symmetry-protected topological phases with on-site finite group G symmetry $\beta $ for two-dimensional quantum spin systems. We show that they have $H^{3}(G,{\mathbb T})$-valued invariant.

We prove that a finite index regular inclusion of $II_1$ -factors with commutative first relative commutant is always a crossed product subfactor with respect to a minimal action of a biconnected weak Kac algebra. Prior to this, we prove that every finite index inclusion of $II_1$ -factors which is of depth 2 and has simple first relative commutant (respectively, is regular and has commutative or simple first relative commutant) admits a two-sided Pimsner–Popa basis (respectively, a unitary orthonormal basis).

We investigate the notion of relatively amenable topological action and show that the action of Thompson’s group T on $S^1$ is relatively amenable with respect to Thompson’s group F. We use this to conclude that F is exact if and only if T is exact. Moreover, we prove that the groupoid of germs of the action of T on $S^1$ is Borel amenable.

We consider groupoids constructed from a finite number of commuting local homeomorphisms acting on a compact metric space and study generalized Ruelle operators and $ C^{\ast } $ -algebras associated to these groupoids. We provide a new characterization of $ 1 $ -cocycles on these groupoids taking values in a locally compact abelian group, given in terms of $ k $ -tuples of continuous functions on the unit space satisfying certain canonical identities. Using this, we develop an extended Ruelle–Perron–Frobenius theory for dynamical systems of several commuting operators ( $ k $ -Ruelle triples and commuting Ruelle operators). Results on KMS states on $ C^{\ast } $ -algebras constructed from these groupoids are derived. When the groupoids being studied come from higher-rank graphs, our results recover existence and uniqueness results for KMS states associated to the graphs.

We study the structure and compute the stable rank of $C^{*}$-algebras of finite higher-rank graphs. We completely determine the stable rank of the $C^{*}$-algebra when the $k$-graph either contains no cycle with an entrance or is cofinal. We also determine exactly which finite, locally convex $k$-graphs yield unital stably finite $C^{*}$-algebras. We give several examples to illustrate our results.

We study the invariance of KMS states on graph $C^{\ast }$-algebras coming from strongly connected and circulant graphs under the classical and quantum symmetry of the graphs. We show that the unique KMS state for strongly connected graphs is invariant under the quantum automorphism group of the graph. For circulant graphs, it is shown that the action of classical and quantum automorphism groups preserves only one of the KMS states occurring at the critical inverse temperature. We also give an example of a graph $C^{\ast }$-algebra having more than one KMS state such that all of them are invariant under the action of classical automorphism group of the graph, but there is a unique KMS state which is invariant under the action of quantum automorphism group of the graph.

Wick polynomials and Wick products are studied in the context of noncommutative probability theory. It is shown that free, Boolean, and conditionally free Wick polynomials can be defined and related through the action of the group of characters over a particular Hopf algebra. These results generalize our previous developments of a Hopf-algebraic approach to cumulants and Wick products in classical probability theory.

Let $\mathcal {M}$ be a semifinite von Nemann algebra equipped with an increasing filtration $(\mathcal {M}_n)_{n\geq 1}$ of (semifinite) von Neumann subalgebras of $\mathcal {M}$ . For $0<p <\infty $ , let $\mathsf {h}_p^c(\mathcal {M})$ denote the noncommutative column conditioned martingale Hardy space and $\mathsf {bmo}^c(\mathcal {M})$ denote the column “little” martingale BMO space associated with the filtration $(\mathcal {M}_n)_{n\geq 1}$ .

We prove the following real interpolation identity: if $0<p <\infty $ and $0<\theta <1$ , then for $1/r=(1-\theta )/p$ ,

$$ \begin{align*} \big(\mathsf{h}_p^c(\mathcal{M}), \mathsf{bmo}^c(\mathcal{M})\big)_{\theta, r}=\mathsf{h}_{r}^c(\mathcal{M}), \end{align*} $$

For the case of complex interpolation, we obtain that if $0<p<q<\infty $ and $0<\theta <1$ , then for $1/r =(1-\theta )/p +\theta /q$ ,

$$ \begin{align*} \big[\mathsf{h}_p^c(\mathcal{M}), \mathsf{h}_q^c(\mathcal{M})\big]_{\theta}=\mathsf{h}_{r}^c(\mathcal{M}) \end{align*} $$

These extend previously known results from $p\geq 1$ to the full range $0<p<\infty $ . Other related spaces such as spaces of adapted sequences and Junge’s noncommutative conditioned $L_p$ -spaces are also shown to form interpolation scale for the full range $0<p<\infty $ when either the real method or the complex method is used. Our method of proof is based on a new algebraic atomic decomposition for Orlicz space version of Junge’s noncommutative conditioned $L_p$ -spaces.

We apply these results to derive various inequalities for martingales in noncommutative symmetric quasi-Banach spaces.

We obtain a characterization of the unital C*-algebras with the property that every element is a limit of products of positive elements, thereby answering a question of Murphy and Phillips.

In this paper, we characterize surjective isometries on certain classes of noncommutative spaces associated with semi-finite von Neumann algebras: the Lorentz spaces $L^{w,1}$ , as well as the spaces $L^1+L^\infty$ and $L^1\cap L^\infty$ . The technique used in all three cases relies on characterizations of the extreme points of the unit balls of these spaces. Of particular interest is that the representations of isometries obtained in this paper are global representations.

We expand upon work from many hands on the decomposition of nuclear maps. Such maps can be characterised by their ability to be approximately written as the composition of maps to and from matrices. Under certain conditions (such as quasidiagonality), we can find a decomposition whose maps behave nicely, by preserving multiplication up to an arbitrary degree of accuracy and being constructed from order-zero maps (as in the definition of nuclear dimension). We investigate these conditions and relate them to a W*-analogue.

We introduce ‘generalised higher-rank k-graphs’ as a class of categories equipped with a notion of size. They extend not only higher-rank k-graphs, but also the Levi categories introduced by the first author as a categorical setting for graphs of groups. We prove that examples of generalised higher-rank k-graphs can be constructed using Zappa–Szép products of groupoids and higher-rank graphs.

Motivated by the recent result in Samei and Wiersma (2020, Advances in Mathematics 359, 106897) that quasi-Hermitian groups are amenable, we consider a generalization of this property on discrete groups associated to certain Roe-type algebras; we call it uniformly quasi-Hermitian. We show that the class of uniformly quasi-Hermitian groups is contained in the class of supramenable groups and includes all subexponential groups. We also show that they are invariant under quasi-isometry.

For two $\sigma $ -unital $C^*$ -algebras, we consider two equivalence bimodules over them, respectively. Then, by taking the crossed products by the equivalence bimodules, we get two inclusions of $C^*$ -algebras. Furthermore, we suppose that one of the inclusions of $C^*$ -algebras is irreducible, that is, the relative commutant of one of the $\sigma $ -unital $C^*$ -algebras in the multiplier $C^*$ -algebra of the crossed product is trivial. We will give a sufficient and necessary condition that the two inclusions are strongly Morita equivalent. Applying this result, we will compute the Picard group of a unital inclusion of unital $C^*$ -algebras induced by an equivalence bimodule over the unital $C^*$ -algebra under the assumption that the unital inclusion of unital $C^*$ -algebras is irreducible.

We establish several new characterizations of amenable $W^*$ - and $C^*$ -dynamical systems over arbitrary locally compact groups. In the $W^*$ -setting we show that amenability is equivalent to (1) a Reiter property and (2) the existence of a certain net of completely positive Herz–Schur multipliers of $(M,G,\alpha )$ converging point weak* to the identity of $G\bar {\ltimes }M$ . In the $C^*$ -setting, we prove that amenability of $(A,G,\alpha )$ is equivalent to an analogous Herz–Schur multiplier approximation of the identity of the reduced crossed product $G\ltimes A$ , as well as a particular case of the positive weak approximation property of Bédos and Conti [On discrete twisted $C^*$ -dynamical systems, Hilbert $C^*$ -modules and regularity. Münster J. Math.5 (2012), 183–208] (generalized to the locally compact setting). When $Z(A^{**})=Z(A)^{**}$ , it follows that amenability is equivalent to the 1-positive approximation property of Exel and Ng [Approximation property of $C^*$ -algebraic bundles. Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc.132(3) (2002), 509–522]. In particular, when $A=C_0(X)$ is commutative, amenability of $(C_0(X),G,\alpha )$ coincides with topological amenability of the G-space $(G,X)$ .

We show that, up to strong cocycle conjugacy, every countable exact group admits a unique equivariantly $\mathcal {O}_{2}$-absorbing, pointwise outer action on the Cuntz algebra $\mathcal {O}_{2}$ with the quasi-central approximation property (QAP). In particular, we establish the equivariant analogue of the Kirchberg $\mathcal {O}_{2}$-absorption theorem for these groups.

In the first part of the paper, we use states on $C^{*}$-algebras in order to establish some equivalent statements to equality in the triangle inequality, as well as to the parallelogram identity for elements of a pre-Hilbert $C^{*}$-module. We also characterize the equality case in the triangle inequality for adjointable operators on a Hilbert $C^{*}$-module. Then we give certain necessary and sufficient conditions to the Pythagoras identity for two vectors in a pre-Hilbert $C^{*}$-module under the assumption that their inner product has a negative real part. We introduce the concept of Pythagoras orthogonality and discuss its properties. We describe this notion for Hilbert space operators in terms of the parallelogram law and some limit conditions. We present several examples in order to illustrate the relationship between the Birkhoff–James, Roberts, and Pythagoras orthogonalities, and the usual orthogonality in the framework of Hilbert $C^{*}$-modules.

Given an ample groupoid, we construct a spectral sequence with groupoid homology with integer coefficients on the second sheet, converging to the K-groups of the (reduced) groupoid C $^*$ -algebra, provided the groupoid has torsion-free stabilizers and satisfies a strong form of the Baum–Connes conjecture. The construction is based on the triangulated category approach to the Baum–Connes conjecture developed by Meyer and Nest. We also present a few applications to topological dynamics and discuss the HK conjecture of Matui.

We generalize Condition (K) from directed graphs to Boolean dynamical systems and show that a locally finite Boolean dynamical system $({{\mathcal {B}}},{{\mathcal {L}}},\theta )$ with countable ${{\mathcal {B}}}$ and ${{\mathcal {L}}}$ satisfies Condition (K) if and only if every ideal of its $C^*$ -algebra is gauge-invariant, if and only if its $C^*$ -algebra has the (weak) ideal property, and if and only if its $C^*$ -algebra has topological dimension zero. As a corollary we prove that if the $C^*$ -algebra of a locally finite Boolean dynamical system with ${{\mathcal {B}}}$ and ${{\mathcal {L}}}$ countable either has real rank zero or is purely infinite, then $({{\mathcal {B}}}, {{\mathcal {L}}}, \theta )$ satisfies Condition (K). We also generalize the notion of maximal tails from directed graph to Boolean dynamical systems and use this to give a complete description of the primitive ideal space of the $C^*$ -algebra of a locally finite Boolean dynamical system that satisfies Condition (K) and has countable ${{\mathcal {B}}}$ and ${{\mathcal {L}}}$ .