A strong similarity property of nuclear \(C^*\)-algebras (Q5928674)

Let \(H\) denote a Hilbert space, \(A\) a \(C^*\)-algebra, \(B(H)\) the \(C^*\)-algebra of all bounded linear operators on \(H\), and \(\max(E)\) the greatest operator space structure on a Banach space \(E\) with the property: for any bounded linear map \(u:E\to B(H)\), \(u\) is completely bounded on \(\max(E)\) and \[ \|u\|_{cb} =\|u\|, \] where \(\|\cdot \|_{cb}\) denotes the completely bounded norm. In the present paper it is shown that if for any operator space \(X\) there is a unique completely contractive linear map \[ Q_X: \max(A)\otimes_hX\otimes_h\max(A)\to A\otimes_{\min}X \] satisfying \(Q_X(a\otimes x\otimes b)=a b\otimes x\) for all \(x=X\) and \(a\), \(b\in A\), then \(Q_X\) is a completely metric surjection for all operator spaces \(X\) if and only if \(A\) is nuclear. Then his result is applied to answer two questions arising from \textit{G. Pisier}'s recent work on the similarity problem for operator algebras [see e.g., Algebra Anal. 10, 132-186 (1998; Zbl 0911.47038), see also [`Similarity problems and completely bounded maps'. 2nd rev. ed., Springer, Lect. Notes Math. 1618 (2001; Zbl 0971.47016)].