Operator Algebras And Applications Part 2

These volumes form an authoritative statement of the current state of research in Operator Algebras. They consist of papers arising from a year-long symposium held at the University of Warwick. Contributors include many very well-known figures in the field.

This book offers a presentation of some new trends in operator theory and operator algebras, with a view to their applications. It consists of separate papers written by some of the leading practitioners in the field. The content is put together by the three editors in a way that should help students and working mathematicians in other parts of the mathematical sciences gain insight into an important part of modern mathematics and its applications. While different specialist authors are outlining new results in this book, the presentations have been made user friendly with the aid of tutorial material. In fact, each paper contains three things: a friendly introduction with motivation, tutorial material, and new research. The authors have strived to make their results relevant to the rest of mathematics. A list of topics discussed in the book includes wavelets, frames and their applications, quantum dynamics, multivariable operator theory, $C*$-algebras, and von Neumann algebras. Some longer papers present recent advances on particular, long-standing problems such as extensions and dilations, the Kadison-Singer conjecture, and diagonals of self-adjoint operators.

The study of operator algebras, which grew out of von Neumann's work in the 1920s and 30s on modelling quantum mechanics, has in recent years experienced tremendous growth and vitality, with significant applications in other areas both within mathematics and in other fields. For this reason, and because of the existence of a strong Canadian school in the subject, the topic was a natural candidate for an emphasis year at The Fields Institute. This volume is the second selection of papers that arose from the seminars and workshops of a year-long program, Operator Algebras and Applications, that took place at The Fields Institute. Topics covered include the classification of amenable C*-algebras, lifting theorems for completely positive maps, and automorphisms of von Neumann algebras of type III.

This is the first of two volumes presenting the theory of operator algebras with applications to quantum statistical mechanics. The authors' approach to the operator theory is to a large extent governed by the dictates of the physical applications. The book is self-contained and most proofs are presented in detail, which makes it a useful text for students with a knowledge of basic functional analysis. The introductory chapter surveys the history and justification of algebraic techniques in statistical physics and outlines the applications that have been made. The second edition contains new and improved results. The principal changes include: A more comprehensive discussion of dissipative operators and analytic elements; the positive resolution of the question of whether maximal orthogonal probability measure on the state space of C-algebra were automatically maximal along all the probability measures on the space.

The topic of this book is the theory of state spaces of operator algebras and their geometry. The states are of interest because they determine representations of the algebra, and its algebraic structure is in an intriguing and fascinating fashion encoded in the geometry of the state space. From the beginning the theory of operator algebras was motivated by applications to physics, but recently it has found unexpected new applica tions to various fields of pure mathematics, like foliations and knot theory, and (in the Jordan algebra case) also to Banach manifolds and infinite di mensional holomorphy. This makes it a relevant field of study for readers with diverse backgrounds and interests. Therefore this book is not intended solely for specialists in operator algebras, but also for graduate students and mathematicians in other fields who want to learn the subject. We assume that the reader starts out with only the basic knowledge taught in standard graduate courses in real and complex variables, measure theory and functional analysis. We have given complete proofs of basic results on operator algebras, so that no previous knowledge in this field is needed. For discussion of some topics, more advanced prerequisites are needed. Here we have included all necessary definitions and statements of results, but in some cases proofs are referred to standard texts. In those cases we have tried to give references to material that can be read and understood easily in the context of our book.

$\textrm{C}*$-approximation theory has provided the foundation for many of the most important conceptual breakthroughs and applications of operator algebras. This book systematically studies (most of) the numerous types of approximation properties that have been important in recent years: nuclearity, exactness, quasidiagonality, local reflexivity, and others. Moreover, it contains user-friendly proofs, insofar as that is possible, of many fundamental results that were previously quite hard to extract from the literature. Indeed, perhaps the most important novelty of the first ten chapters is an earnest attempt to explain some fundamental, but difficult and technical, results as painlessly as possible. The latter half of the book presents related topics and applications--written with researchers and advanced, well-trained students in mind. The authors have tried to meet the needs both of students wishing to learn the basics of an important area of research as well as researchers who desire a fairly comprehensive reference for the theory and applications of $\textrm{C}*$-approximation theory.