The nuclear dimension of \(C^{*}\)-algebras (Q968812)

The authors introduce \textit{nuclear dimension} for \(C^*\)-algebras as follows. A \(C^*\)-algebra \(A\) has nuclear dimension at most \(n\) if there exists a net \((F_\lambda,\psi_\lambda,\varphi_\lambda)_{\lambda\in\Lambda}\), where \(F_\lambda\) are finite-dimensional \(C^*\)-algebras, \(\psi_\lambda:A\to F_\lambda\) and \(\varphi_\lambda:F_\lambda\to A\) are completely positive maps such that {\parindent8mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] \(\varphi_\lambda\circ\psi_\lambda(a)\to a\) uniformly on finite subsets of \(A\); \item[(ii)] \(\|\psi_\lambda\|\leq 1\); \item[(iii)] for each \(\lambda\), there is a decomposition \(F_\lambda=F_\lambda^{(1)}\oplus\cdots\oplus F_\lambda^{(n)}\) such that each \(\varphi_\lambda|_{F_\lambda^{(i)}}\), \(i=1,\dots, n\), is a contraction of order zero (the latter means that it respects orthogonality: \(\varphi\) is of order zero if, for all positive \(a, b\), \(a\perp b\) implies \(\varphi(a)\perp\varphi(b)\)). \end{itemize}} It is shown that nuclear dimension behaves well with respect to inductive limits, tensor products, hereditary subalgebras, quotients and extensions. The evaluation of the nuclear dimension for many \(C^*\)-algebras is given. In particular, it is shown that the nuclear dimension is finite for all UCT Kirchberg algebras, and that, for a discrete metric space of bounded geometry, the nuclear dimension of the associated uniform Roe algebra is dominated by the asymptotic dimension of the underlying space.