Strongly outer actions of amenable groups on \(\mathcal{Z}\)-stable nuclear \(C^\ast\)-algebras (Q2136293)

The paper under review concerns the action \(\alpha\) of a discrete, countable, amenable group \(G\) on a separable, simple, unital, nuclear, \(\mathcal{Z}\)-stable \(C^*\)-algebra \(A\). It is motivated by researching general conditions for the preservation of \(\mathcal{Z}\)-stability by the induced crossed product \(A \rtimes G\). Towards this end, the authors study the relation of strong outerness of \(\alpha\) to two weaker versions of the tracial Rohklin property for the stabilization \(\alpha \otimes\mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}}\). The first one is the weak tracial Rohklin property that replaces projections with positive elements and has been under considerable study in the literature. The second concerns the Rohklin dimenion introduced by \textit{I. Hirshberg} et al. [Commun. Math. Phys. 335, No. 2, 637--670 (2015; Zbl 1333.46055)]. Furthermore, they provide conditions for \(\alpha\) to be cocycle conjugate to \(\alpha \otimes\mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}}\), even when \(\alpha\) is not strongly outer. The paper under review contains two main results in this endeavour (under the hypotheses oulined on \(G\) and \(A\)). First, if the orbits of the action induced by \(\alpha\) on \(T(A)\) are finite and their cardinality is uniformly bounded, they show that the strong outerness of \(\alpha\) is equivalent to the weak tracial Rohklin property for \(\alpha \otimes\mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}}\); if, in particular, \(G\) is residually finite then the above are also equivalent to \(\alpha \otimes \mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}}\) having finite Rohklin dimension (in fact at most \(2\)). The first equivalence extends previous results of \textit{S. Echterhoff} et al. [J. Reine Angew. Math. 639, 173--221 (2010; Zbl 1202.46081)], \textit{H. Matui} and \textit{Y. Sato} [Am. J. Math. 136, No. 6, 1441--1496 (2014; Zbl 1317.46042)], and \textit{Q.-Y. Wang} [Rocky Mt. J. Math. 48, No. 4, 1307--1344 (2018; Zbl 1408.46066)], by removing all smallness assumptions on the size of the orbits by the induced action on \(T(A)\) (modulo the uniform boundedness assumption). The second equivalence generalizes results of Liao for \(\mathbb{Z}^m\)-actions, see [\textit{H.-C. Liao}, J. Funct. Anal. 270, No. 10, 3675--3708 (2016; Zbl 1355.46055); Int. J. Math. 28, No. 7, Article ID 1750050, 22 p. (2017; Zbl 1383.46053)]. Secondly, if \(\partial_e T(A)\) is compact with \(\dim(\partial_e T(A)) < \infty\), the orbits of the induced action of \(\alpha\) on \(\partial_e T(A)\) are finite with uniformly bounded cardinality, and the orbit space \(\partial_e T(A)/ G\) is Hausdorff, then \(\alpha\) is cocycle conjugate to \(\alpha \otimes\mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}}\). The conditions cover for example the case when the action induced on \(\partial_e T(A)\) factors through a finite group action. This generalizes results of \textit{Y. Sato} [Adv. Stud. Pure Math. 80, 189--210 (2019; Zbl 1434.46039)], and in turn of Matui and Sato [loc.~cit..], by weakening the assumption of a trivial action on the trace space. In the process, the authors develop equivariant versions of complemented partitions of unity and uniform property \(\Gamma\), which are of independent interest. They show that if \(A\) is a separable, unital, nuclear \(C^*\)-algebra with non-empty trace space and with no finite-dimensional quotients, and the induced action of \(\alpha\) on \(T(A)\) has finite orbits uniformly bounded in size by \(M >0\), then: \((A, \alpha)\) has uniform property \(\Gamma\) if and only if \((A, \alpha)\) has complemented partitions of unity with constant \(M\), if and only if for every \(n \in \mathbb{N}\), there is a unital embedding of the matrix algebra \(M_n \to (A^{\mathcal{U}} \cap A') ^{\alpha^{\mathcal{U}}}\). If \(A\) is also \(\mathcal{Z}\)-stable and simple, then the above are equivalent to \((A, \alpha)\) being cocycle conjugate to \((A \otimes \mathcal{Z}, \alpha \otimes \mathrm{id}_{\mathcal{Z}})\).