Projections in \(C^*\)-algebras of nilpotent groups (Q1124082)

The authors investigate projections, i.e. self-adjoint idempotents, in the \(L^ 1\)-algebra and in the \(C^*\)-algebra of nilpotent groups. They obtain explicit descriptions of all projections in \(L^ 1(G)\) when G is almost connected and in \(C^*(G)\) when G is an infinite discrete nilpotent group the torsion subgroup of which is contained in the center. More precisely among other results they show that for an infinite nilpotent discrete group G, the following are equivalent: i) the torsion group \(G^ t\) of G is contained in the center of G, ii) every projection in \(C^*(G)\) has the form \(p=| F|^{-1}\sum_{\kappa \in F^{\wedge}}c_{\kappa}\cdot \kappa\) where F is a finite central subgroup of G and each \(c_{\kappa}\in \{0,1\}\), iii) every projection in \(L^ 1(G)\) has finite support. For an almost connected locally compact group the authors prove that any compact subset of \(G^{\wedge}\) consists of finitely many integrable representations and that every projection is the orthogonal sum of a finite number of minimal projections.