An abstract Voiculescu-Brown-Douglas-Fillmore absorption theorem. (Q5943446)

The present paper is devoted to a generalization of so called Weyl-von Neumann theorems of Voiculescu, Kasparov, Kirchberg and Lin, which in turn extends a result of \textit{L. G. Brown}, \textit{R. G. Douglas} and \textit{P. A. Fillmore} [Ann. Math. (2) 105, 265--324 (1977; Zbl 0376.46036)]. Namely, an intrinsic characterization is obtained of those extensions of one separable \(C^*\)-algebra by another which are absorbing in a certain natural nuclear sense. If the first algebra (which is assumed to be a stable ideal) or the quotient is nuclear, then this condition reduces to that considered by earlier authors.