On dimension of the space of derivations on commutative regular algebras (Q6197144)

The dimension of the space of derivations on a commutative von Neumann regular subalgebra of a measure space is determined. Specifically, \((\Omega,\Sigma,\mu)\) is a measure space with a finite countably additive measure, \(S(\Omega)\) is the algebra of \(\mathbb{F}\)-valued measurable functions on \((\Omega,\Sigma,\mu)\) (for \(\mathbb{F} = \mathbb{R}\) or \(\mathbb{C}\)), and \(\mathcal{A}\) is a von Neumann regular subalgebra of \(S(\Omega)\). \textit{A. F. Ber} et al. [Extr. Math. 21, No. 2, 107--147 (2006; Zbl 1129.46056)] and \textit{A. G. Kusraev} [Sib. Mat. Zh. 47, No. 1, 97--107 (2006; Zbl 1113.46043); translation in Sib. Math. J. 47, No. 1, 77--85 (2006)] proved that \(S(\Omega)\) admits nonzero derivations if and only if \(\nabla(S(\Omega))\), the Boolean algebra of idempotents in \(S(\Omega)\), is not atomic. Also, \textit{A. F. Ber} [Mat. Tr. 13, No. 1, 3--14 (2010; Zbl 1249.13020); translation in Sib. Adv. Math. 21, No. 3, 161--169 (2011)] showed that \(\dim_{\mathbb{F}} \operatorname{Der} (S([0,1]))\) is uncountable, being at least \(\dim_{\mathbb{F}} S([0,1])^I\) for an uncountable set \(I\). In the present paper, both \(S(\Omega)\) and \(\mathcal{A}\) are assumed to be homogeneous in the sense that the Boolean algebras \(\nabla(S(\Omega))\) and \(\nabla(\mathcal{A})\) are homogeneous. Moreover, the transcendence degree of \(\mathcal{A}\) over \(\mathbb{F}\), as introduced by the authors [Positivity 26, No. 1, Paper No. 11, 23 p. (2022; Zbl 1494.46055)], is assumed to be infinite, as is the weight \(\tau(\nabla(\mathcal{A}))\), that is, the least cardinality of a set generating \(\nabla(\mathcal{A})\). The authors prove that \(\dim_{\mathbb{F}} \operatorname{Der}(\mathcal{A}) = \tau(\nabla(\mathcal{A}))^{\operatorname{trdeg}(\mathcal{A})}\).