Asymptotic unitary equivalence and classification of simple amenable \(C^{\ast}\)-algebras (Q633100)

This paper contributes to the program of classification of certain classes of amenable C*-algebras by Elliott type invariants. Two unital monomorphisms \(\phi_1,\phi_2 :A \rightarrow B\) between unital simple C*-algebras are called \textit{approximately unitary equivalent} if there exists a continuous path \((u_t)_{t\geq 0}\) of unitaries in \(B\) such that \(\lim_{t\rightarrow\infty} u_t \phi_1 (a) u_t^* =\phi_2 (a)\) for all \(a\in A\). The main result in the paper, Theorem 7.2, strengthens previous results concerning this property. It shows that, under reasonably mild assumptions (\(A\) in the class \(\mathcal N\) of separable amenable C*-algebras satisfying UCT and \(B\) separable with tracial rank at most one), two monomorphisms \(\phi_1\) and \(\phi_2\) as above are approximately unitarily equivalent if and only if : (i) \(\phi_1\) and \(\phi_2\) induce: (i.1) same element in \(KK(A,B)\) (and in particular the \(K_1\)-group of the mapping torus C*-algebra \(M_{\phi_1,\phi_2}\) identifies with \(K_0(B) \oplus K_1(A)\)); (i.2) same homomorphisms \(\phi_i^\ddagger :U(A)/CU(A) \rightarrow U(B)/CU(B)\) between the corresponding quotients of the unitary group by the closed (normal) subgroup generated by commutators; (i.3) same continuous affine maps \((\phi_i)_T :T(B) \rightarrow T(A)\) between the corresponding tracial state spaces. (ii) The kernel of the rotation related map \(R_{\phi_1,\phi_2} : K_1 (M_{\phi_1,\phi_2}) = K_0(B)\oplus K_1(A) \rightarrow \text{Aff} (T(B))\) defined by \(R_{\phi_1,\phi_2} ([u]) (\tau) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \int_0^1 \tau \big( \frac{du(t)}{dt} u(t)^* \big) dt\) is equal to \(\text{Ker} (\rho_B) \oplus K_1(A)\), where \(\rho_B\) denotes the map from \(K_0(B)\) to \(\text{Aff} (T(B))\) induced by trace evaluation of projections. Worthy applications to C*-classification are derived. It is shown that the Elliott invariant is a complete invariant for \(\mathcal Z\)-stability. More precisely, it is proved in Theorem 11.7 that if \(A\) and \(B\) are two unital simple C*-algebras in the class \(\mathcal N\) with isomorphic Elliott invariants and such that the tracial ranks of the C*-tensor products \(A\otimes M_{\mathfrak p}\), \(A\otimes M_{\mathfrak q}\), \(B\otimes M_{\mathfrak p}\) and \(B\otimes M_{\mathfrak q}\) with the UHF algebras associated with \(\mathfrak p\) and \(\mathfrak q\), two relatively prime supernatural numbers of infinite type, are all at most one and \(M_{\mathfrak p}\otimes M_{\mathfrak q}\) is isomorphic to the AF-algebra \(Q\) with \(K_0(Q)={\mathbb Q}\) and \([1_Q]=1\), then \(A\) and \(B\) are \(\mathcal Z\)-stable, that is \(A\otimes \mathcal Z \cong B\otimes \mathcal Z\) where \(\mathcal Z\) denotes the Jiang-Su C*-algebra. Another corollary is that if \(A\) is a unital simple infinite-dimensional AH-algebra, then \(A\otimes \mathcal Z\) is isomorphic to a unital simple AH-algebra with no dimension growth.