A purely infinite Cuntz-like Banach \(\ast\)-algebra with no purely infinite ultrapowers (Q2127594)

A complex unital algebra \(A\) is purely infinite if it is not a division algebra and for every non-zero \(a\in A\) there exist \(b,c\in A\) such that \(1_A= bac\). A purely infinite algebra is simple. The authors' main contribution is the construction of a Banach \(*\)-algebra \(\mathcal{A}/\mathcal{J}\) which is purely infinite, but whose ultrapowers are not even simple. They consider a certain semigroup algebra \(\mathcal{A}\) with two natural idempotents, and they quotient it by the relation that these idempotents sum to \(1\) to get \(\mathcal{A}/\mathcal{J}\). To show that this algebra does not have simple ultrapowers, they construct a faithful, but not bounded below, representation on the Banach space \(\ell_p\) for each \(1\leq p<\infty\). It has been known that a \(C^*\) algebra is purely infinite if and only if so are their ultrapowers. The authors give an alternative proof of this result, and they find new examples of Banach algebras with purely infinite ultrapowers.