Examples of weakly amenable discrete quantum groups (Q2437058)

The free orthogonal and free unitary quantum groups were constructed by \textit{A. Van Daele} and \textit{S.-Z. Wang} during 1995--96 [Int. J. Math. 7, No. 2, 255--263 (1996; Zbl 0870.17011)] and \textit{S.-Z. Wang} [Commun. Math. Phys. 167, No. 3, 671--692 (1995; Zbl 0838.46057)]. They are defined as universal \(C^*\) algebras generalizing the algebra of continuous functions on the classical orthogonal and unitary groups, together with some additional structure turning them into compact quantum groups. Weak amenability has recently attracted a lot of attention since it is a key ingredient in some deformation/rigidity technique for von Neumann algebras. The main purpose of this well written paper is to produce examples of weakly amenable discrete quantum groups. Towards this goal, the author proves that the free orthogonal and free unitary groups \(FO^+_N\) and \(FU^+_N\) are weakly amenable and that their Cowling-Haagerup constant is equal to \(1\). This is achieved by estimating the completely bounded norm of the projections on the coefficients of irreducible representations of their compact duals. An argument of monoidal equivalence then allows the author to extend this result to quantum automorphism groups of finite spaces and even yields some examples of weakly amenable non-unimodular discrete quantum groups with Haagerup property. The paper ends with some partial answers on the following question for further study and research: ``When is it possible to implement an approximation property by multipliers associated to central elements on a discrete quantum group?''