A Fredholm operator approach to Morita equivalence (Q1313092)

The purpose of this paper is to extend to general \(C^*\)-algebras the Brown-Green-Rieffel result according to which strongly Morita equivalent \(C^*\)-algebras have isomorphic \(K\)-groups. Let \(X\) be a left-full Hilbert \(A\)-\(B\)-bimodule. If \(\alpha\) is an element of the group \(K_ 0(A)\), let \(T\) be a Fredholm operator representating \(\alpha\) in the sense that \(\text{ind}(T)=\alpha\). We denote by \(X_ *(\alpha)\) the element of the group \(K_ 0(B)\) defined by \(X_ *(\alpha)=\text{ind}(T\otimes I_ X)\). \(X_ *\) is well defined and it is a group homomorphism. The \(C^*\)-algebras \(A\) and \(B\) are said to be strongly Morita equivalent if there exist a Hilbert \(A\)-\(B\)-bimodule which is simultaneously left and right-full. Such a bimodule is called an imprimitivity bimodule. The main result is: Theorem 5.3. If \(A\) and \(B\) are strongly Morita equivalent and \(X\) is an imprimitivity bimodule, then \(X_ *\) is an isomorphism from \(K_ 0(A)\) onto \(K_ 0(B)\).