Topological entropy of free product automorphisms (Q1861104)

\textit{D. Voiculescu} [Commun. Math. Phys. 170, 249--281 (1995; Zbl 0824.46079)] introduced the topological entropy of an automorphism of a nuclear \(C^*\)-algebra. This concept was extended to the exact case by \textit{N. P. Brown} [Math. Ann. 314, 347--367 (1999; Zbl 0952.46039)]. The Brown-Voiculescu entropy of an automorphism \(\alpha\) is denoted by \(ht(\alpha)\). The paper under review is well focused on four questions: The first question is related to the behavior of topological entropy under free products as the main aim of the paper. In fact, it is shown that \(ht(\alpha \star \beta)=\max(ht(\alpha),ht(\beta))\) for a reduced free product automorphism \(\alpha \star \beta\) with amalgamation over a finite dimensional \(C^*\)-algebra. The second concerns the Connes-Narnhofer-Thirring (CNT) variational principle [see \textit{A. Connes, H. Narnhofer} and \textit{W. E. Thirring}, Commun. Math. Phys. 112, 691--719 (1987; Zbl 0637.46073)]. The third is related to embeddings of dynamical systems. It is proved that every nuclear \(C^*\)-dynamical system can be covariantly embedded into the Cuntz algebra \(\mathcal O _\infty\) in an entropy-preserving way. The fourth concerns computing of the set \(TE(A)=ht(Aut(A))\) for a given \(C^*\)-algebra \(A\). The authors show that \(TE(\mathcal O _\infty)=[0,\infty]\).