Quantitative \(K\)-theory and the Künneth formula for operator algebras (Q2316801)

The Künneth formula in \(K\)-theory computes the \(K\)-theory of the tensor product \(A\otimes B\) of two \(C^*\)-algebras \(A\) and \(B\) in terms of the \(K\)-theories of \(A\) and \(B\). Schochet proved that the Künneth formula holds when one of the \(C^*\)-algebras in question belongs to the so-called bootstrap class. For fixed \(A\), the validity of the Künneth formula for the pair \((A,B)\) does not however imply that \(A\) belongs to the bootstrap class, and other examples of \(C^*\)-algebras for which the Künneth formula holds arise from crossed products by groups that satisfy the Baum-Connes conjecture with coefficients. On the other hand, Ozawa provided a counterexample to the Künneth formula for arbitrary \(C^*\)-algebras. The goal of the paper under review is to develop techniques of quantitative operator \(K\)-theory to compute the \(K\)-theory of \(C^*\)-algebras, in particular tensor products of them, and apply these techniques to provide new examples of \(C^*\)-algebras satisfying the Künneth formula. In the category of \(C^*\)-algebras, the usual Mayer-Vietoris six terms exact sequence in \(K\)-theory requires the existence of nontrivial ideals, but many \(C^*\)-algebras of interest do not have any. The full power of quantitative \(K\)-theory is that a controlled version of the Mayer-Vietoris sequence can be stated, only involving neighborhood algebras of a suitable decomposition into closed linear subspaces. In this work, the authors introduce the concept of \textit{finite asymptotic nuclear decomposition} for filtered \(C^*\)-algebras as a noncommutative analogue of the asymptotic dimension for metric spaces. Roughly speaking, finiteness of the asymptotic nuclear decomposition allows one, for some integer \(n\), to decompose at order \(r\) a \(C^*\)-algebra \(A\) in \(n\) steps under controlled Mayer-Vietoris into \(C^*\)-algebras which are \textit{locally} in the bootstrap class. The quantitative \(K\)-theory of \(A\) can be then computed inductively, and the \(K\)-theory is obtained by taking limit of quantitative \(K\)-theory when the order \(r\) goes to \(\infty\). As an application, the authors prove the Künneth formula for \(C^*\)-algebras of finite asymptotic nuclear dimension.