Simultaneous similarity, bounded generation and amenability (Q2471140)

In 1950, M.\,M.\,Day and J.\,Dixmier noticed that any locally compact \textit{amenable} group is \textit{unitarizable}, i.e., for every bounded representation \(\pi:G \to B(H)\), with \(H\) a Hilbert space, there exists an invertible operator \(S\in B(H)\) such that \(g\mapsto S\pi (g)S^{-1}\) is a unitary representation. Furthermore, it is not hard to choose \(S\) in the von Neumann \(\pi (G)^{\prime \prime}\), so that amenable groups are actually strongly unitarizable. The paper under review investigates the (significantly harder) converse problem, proving that all strongly unitarizable discrete groups are amenable. This arises as a corollary of a more general result, showing that a \(C^*\)-algebra \(A\) is nuclear if and only if one of the following conditions holds: {\parindent 7mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] Any completely bounded homomorphism \(u:A\to B(H)\) is similar to a \(\ast\)-homomorphism of \(A\) through a similarity from \(u(A)^{\prime \prime}\). \item[(ii)] For any \(C^*\)-algebra \(B\) and any completely bounded morphisms \(u:A\to B(H)\) and \(v:B\to B(H)\) with commuting ranges, there exists a similarity \(S\in B(H)\) such that \(g\mapsto S u(g)S^{-1}\) and \(g\mapsto S v(g)S^{-1}\) are \(\ast\)-homomorphisms. \item[(iii)] Same as in (ii) but with \(v\) assumed to be a \(\ast\)-homomorphism. \end{itemize}} Actually a more accurate result is proved, adding two other equivalent conditions and asking \(B\) to only be a member of a certain class of non-nuclear \(C^*\)-algebras that includes the full and reduced \(C^*\)-algebras of free groups. Such a \(C^*\)-algebra, called liberal, is defined by the existence of a representation \(\sigma :B\to B(H)\) such that, for any \(n\geq 1\), there are linear mappings \(v_n: E_\lambda^n \to \sigma (B)^\prime\) and \(w_n :\sigma (B)^\prime \to E_\lambda^n\) with \(w_n v_n =\text{ Id}\) and \(\sup_n \| v_n\| _{\text{cb}} \| w_n\| _{\text{cb}} <\infty\), where \(E_\lambda^n\) denotes the subspace spanned by the canonical generators of \(C^*_\lambda ({\mathbb F}_n)\). No example of a non-nuclear non-liberal \(C^*\)-algebra is known. The second part of the paper is concerned with the lengths \(L(A\otimes_{\max} B) \geq L(A\otimes_{\min} B)\) of a pair \((A,B)\) of unital \(C^*\)-algebras, as defined by the author in [Integral Equations Oper.\ Theory 31, No.\,3, 353--370 (1998; Zbl 0932.47015)]. The equivalence of the following two conditions is proved: {\parindent 7mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] {\(L(A\otimes_{\max} B) \leq d\).} \item[(ii)] {The restriction of the canonical quotient map \(A\ast B \to A\otimes_{\max} B\) to the closed span of words of length \(\leq d\) is a complete surjection.} \end{itemize}} This is used in conjunction with results from the first part to prove that if there exists a liberal \(C^*\)-algebra \(B\) such that \(L(A\otimes_{\min} B)<\infty\), then \(A\) is nuclear. The latter result shows that a discrete group \(G\) is amenable if and only if \(L(C^* (G)\otimes_{\max} B(H))<\infty\) with infinite-dimensional \(H\), answering a number of questions from [loc.\,cit.].