The structure of the automorphism group of an injective factor and the cocycle conjugacy of discrete abelian group actions (Q1201277)

Connes announced in 1976 a characterization of the approximately inner automorphisms and the centrally trivial automorphisms for the approximately finite-dimensional (AFD) factors of type III, but a proof has been unavailable up to the present paper. This in spite of the use of the results in the proof of the uniqueness of the injective factor of type \(\text{III}_ 1\) (due to U. Haagerup, but based on A. Connes' work). If \({\mathcal M}\) is an AFD type III factor, they show that \(\text{Ker(mod)}= \overline {\text{Int}}({\mathcal M})\) where the notation is as in the seminal \textit{A. Connes} and \textit{M. Takesaki} paper on ``flow of weights'' [Tôhoku Math. J. 29, 473-575 (1977; Zbl 0408.46047)]. They also show that, up to inner automorphisms, the centrally trivial automorphisms of \({\mathcal M}\) are precisely the extended modular automorphism defined from some dominant weight \(\varphi\) on \({\mathcal M}\) and some cocycle with values in the unitary group of \({\mathcal C}_ \varphi\). There are several ingredients in the proof, and we mention only here a special central sequence construction which is based on a form of Rohlin's lemma. It is also interesting that the general case follows from having the details worked out for the two special cases \(\text{III}_ 0\) and \(\text{III}_ 1\) first.