Algebras of noncommutative functions on subvarieties of the noncommutative ball: the bounded and completely bounded isomorphism problem (Q2286490)

A noncommutative variety $\mathfrak{V}$ is a graded set of row contractions that annihilates a family of bounded noncommutative holomorphic functions. There are two algebras that can be associated to $\mathfrak{V}$, the (wot-closed) algebra $H^{\infty}(\mathfrak{V})$ that consists of the bounded noncommutative functions on $\mathfrak{V}$, and the (norm-closed) algebra $A(\mathfrak{V})$ that consists of the bounded noncommutative functions which extend to uniformly continuous functions on the closure of $\mathfrak{V}$. The prototype is Popescu's noncommutative Hardy algebra obtained when the variety is the noncommutative ball. The authors have shown that algebras of noncommutative varieties model quotients of the Hardy algebra [\textit{G. Salomon} et al., Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 370, No. 12, 8639--8690 (2018; Zbl 1454.46058)]. In the paper under review, the authors provide rigidity results for the algebra $H^{\infty}(\mathfrak{V})$ in connection to the similarity envelope $\widetilde{\mathfrak{V}}$ of $\mathfrak{V}$, i.e., the orbit of $\mathfrak{V}$ by similarities. They show that, if $\mathfrak{V}$ and $\mathfrak{W}$ are homogeneous noncommutative varieties, then $H^{\infty}(\mathfrak{V})$ and $H^{\infty}(\mathfrak{W})$ are weak$*$-continuously isomorphic if and only if their similarity envelopes $\widetilde{\mathfrak{V}}$ and $\widetilde{\mathfrak{W}}$ are isomorphic by a bi-Lipschitz noncommutative biholomorphism. The Lipschitz condition here is taken with respect to a free pseudo-hyperbolic distance on the similarity envelope of the closed noncommutative ball that measures the difference between point evaluations. They further show that being weak*-isomorphic is equivalent to being isomorphic as topological algebras or as operator algebras, while the varieties being bi-Lipschitz biholomorphic is equivalent to being bi-Lipschitz linearly isomorphic, and the free pseudo-hyperbolic distance can be substituted by a completely bounded version. In addition, they show that the isomorphism between the algebras is actually strong, in the sense that it is obtained by a precomposition with a bi-Lipschitz noncommutative biholomorphism. Similar results are obtained for the algebras $A(\mathfrak{V})$ and $A(\mathfrak{W})$ and the similarity envelopes of the closures of the varieties. In the process, the authors develop interesting tools that help in the study of noncommutative functions and ``commutative noncommutative'' varieties. These include a noncommutative analogue of Schwarz's Lemma and a certain type of Nullstellensatz. A detailed study is devoted to the family of noncommutative varieties determined by the $q$-commutation relations.