The Cuntz semigroup, a Riesz type interpolation property, comparison and the ideal property (Q2637437)

In the course of Elliott's classification program for separable, nuclear \(C^*\)-algebras, it has become clear that a further study of the Cuntz semigroup is needed. It has been shown that the understanding of the regularity properties of simple \(C^*\)-algebras, including the comparison of positive elements, is essential in the new development of the classification program. Therefore, extending the notion of comparison to classes of non-simple \(C^*\)-algebras and proving appropriate comparison results for these classes is a natural thing to do. Some of these classes of non-simple \(C^*\)-algebras that can be classified by \(K\)-theoretical invariants satisfy the ideal property, i.e., if each of its ideals is generated by its projections (every \(C^*\)-algebra of real rank zero has the ideal property). In this paper the authors define the so-called weak Riesz-type interpolation by projections property for the Cuntz semigroup of a \(C^*\)-algebra and prove that it is satisfied by the Cuntz semigroup of every \(C^*\)-algebra with the ideal property. Related to this, they obtain two characterizations of the ideal property in terms of the Cuntz semigroup of the \(C^*\)-algebra. Some additional characterizations are proved in the special case of stable, purely infinite \(C^*\)-algebras, and two of them are expressed in the language of the Cuntz semigroup. Finally, they introduce a notion of comparison of positive elements for every unital \(C^*\)-algebra that has (normalized) quasitraces weak strict comparison. They prove that large classes of \(C^*\)-algebras (including large classes of AH-algebras) with the ideal property have this comparison property.