A noncommutative version of Farber's topological complexity (Q1705687)

Farber's topological complexity as a topological approach to the robot motion planning problem was introduced by \textit{M. Farber} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 29, No. 2, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)]. In this paper, the author introduces a noncommutative version of the topological complexity by quotient \(C^*\)-algebras and quotient maps. The author proves that the \(TC\) (topological complexity) of some \(C^*\)-algebras equals one, which contains matrices, UHF algebras, etc. The author also gives some \(C^*\)-algebras with infinite \(TC\), such as compact operators plus identity, simple \(C^*\)-algebras \(A\) with \(TC(A)>1\), and shows that the topological complexity can distinguish commutative \(C^*\)-algebras from their non-commutative deformations. As an analogue of the result on the complexity on the product space, the author also proves that \(TC(A\otimes B)\leq TC(A)\cdot TC(B)\) and gives an example with \(TC(A\otimes B)< TC(A)\cdot TC(B)\). Finally, the author constructs a class of \(C^*\)-algebras \(\{S_n\}\) with \(TC(S_n)=2\).