Exotic crossed products and the Baum-Connes conjecture (Q1651409)

This article carefully studies crossed-product functors for \(C^*\)-algebras with an action of a locally compact group~\(G\). It builds a descent homomorphism in Kasparov theory for crossed product functors that are compatible with correspondences. This makes such crossed-product functors amenable to the usual machinery for the study of the Baum--Connes conjecture. The article highlights extra properties that crossed-product functors may or may not have, such as, funtoriality for homomorphisms to multiplier algebras or for \(C^*\)-correspondences, compatibility with inclusions for ideals, hereditary subalgebras or corners, or with \(C^*\)-tensor products. The maximal and reduced crossed products are defined by natural \(C^*\)-norms on the convolution *-algebras \(C_c(G,A)\) for \(G\)-\(C^*\)-algebras \(A\). A crossed-product functor is defined by completing \(C_c(G,A)\) in a norm that lies between the maximal and reduced norms and that is natural in the sense that the *-homomorphisms \(C_c(G,A) \to C_c(G,B)\) induced by \(G\)-equivariant *-homomorphisms \(A\to B\) are always bounded and hence extend to the \(C^*\)-completions. Several known constructions of crossed-product functors are recalled in the article, and some constructions are introduced to produce interesting counterexamples. Crossed-product functors based on \(L^p\)-spaces are studied in greater detail. Besides exactness, a crucial property of a crossed-product functor is functoriality for \(C^*\)-correspondences. This is shown to be equivalent to several other conditions (Theorem~4.9). Among them is that inclusions of hereditary subalgebras or corners \(p A p \subseteq A\) induce injective maps of crossed products, and also functoriality for completely positive maps. Another notion that is equivalent in the \(\sigma\)-unital case is compatibility with \(C^*\)-stabilisation, that is, tensoring with \(C^*\)-algebras of compact operators on \(G\)-Hilbert spaces. A version of the latter result also follows from Proposition~39 in [\textit{R. Meyer}, in: \(K\)-theory and noncommutative geometry. Proceedings of the ICM 2006 satellite conference, Valladolid, Spain, August 31--September 6, 2006. Zürich: European Mathematical Society (EMS). 1--39 (2008; Zbl 1157.19004)], which asserts that the canonical functor from the category of \(\sigma\)-unital \(G\)-\(C^*\)-algebras to the \(G\)-equivariant correspondence category is the universal \(C^*\)-stable functor. Assume now that we are dealing with a correspondence crossed-product functor. Then the dual coaction of \(C^*(G)\) makes sense on these exotic crossed products (Theorem 5.6). A descent homomorphism in Kasparov theory is constructed in Section~6 of the article, in the same way as in the familiar case of the reduced crossed product. A strong form of the Baum-Connes conjecture holds if the group has a dual Dirac element and the \(\gamma\)-element is~\(1\). This is shown, for instance, for a-T-menable groups. In this case, the usual machinery shows that the Baum-Connes assembly map is an isomorphism also for correspondence crossed-product functors (Theorem 6.5). In particular, all correspondence crossed-products have the same K-theory; the latter holds also for all K-amenable groups (Theorem 6.6). The existence of the descent homomorphism for correspondence crossed-product functors follows also from the universal property of equivariant KK-theory: it is the universal functor that is split-exact and \(C^*\)-stable (see, for instance, Theorem~50 in [loc. cit.]). Any crossed-product functor is split-exact. And \(C^*\)-stability is equivalent to compatibility with correspondences in the \(\sigma\)-unital case.