Tracial central states on compact quantum groups (Q6971217)

The space of traces on a discrete group is a rich subject of study that yields a lot of information about the group. Traces are positive-definite functions that are conjugation invariant. Traces which cannot be written as a proper convex combination of other traces are called characters. The space of traces is a compact convex set under the topology of point-wise convergence. The space of characters is the Pontryagin dual when the group is abelian; it can be identified with the set of inequivalent irreducible representations for finite groups. There is a notion of character-rigidity that encodes the property that the group admits only very special extremal conjugation invariant functions. This property is a distinguishing factor between lattices in higher rank groups and in rank \(1\) groups. Such rigidity results can be viewed as generalizations of the famous Margulis normal subgroup theorem. One of the interesting results proved recently concerning the space of traces is that it forms a so-called Poulsen simplex in the case of free groups whereas this may not be true even for virtually free groups like \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{Z})\).\N\NThe authors initiate the study of the property analogous character rigidity for discrete quantum groups, by phrasing the property in terms of the compact dual. For a compact quantum group \(G\) in the sense of Woronowicz, the authors consider tracial states on the associated Hopf \(\ast\)-algebra \(\mathrm{Pol}(G)\) -- this is essentially the linear span of matrix elements of irreducible co-representations of \(G\). More precisely, the authors concern themselves with the so-called tracial central states of the latter space. Their main results give complete classifications of extremal tracial central states for some compact quantum groups including \(q\)-deformations of a classical compact semi-simple simply connected Lie group.