Embeddings of uniform Roe algebras (Q779640)

This paper investigates the following question: what can be said about the large scale geometry of a metric space \(X\) given that its uniform Roe algebra \(C^*_u(X)\) embeds into the uniform Roe algebra of a metric space \(Y\)? The analogous question where the embedding is replaced by an isomorphism is known as the problem of \textit{rigidity} of uniform Roe algebras and has been studied by several authors [\textit{B. M. Braga} and \textit{I. Farah}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 374, No. 2, 1007--1040 (2021; Zbl 1458.51007)]; \textit{J. Špakula} and \textit{R. Willett}, Adv. Math. 249, 289--310 (2013; Zbl 1295.46051)]. Before stating the main results, we discuss some key definitions. The authors work under the hypotheses that all metric spaces are \textit{uniformly locally finite} (also known as having ``bounded geometry''). Under this assumption, many geometric-analytic properties are equivalent, among which we find the following (see [\textit{P. W. Nowak} and \textit{G.-L. Yu}, Large scale geometry. Zürich: European Mathematical Society (EMS) (2012; Zbl 1264.53051); \textit{J. Roe} and \textit{R. Willett}, J. Funct. Anal. 266, No. 3, 1674--1684 (2014; Zbl 1308.46077); \textit{G. Arzhantseva} (ed.) and \textit{A. Valette} (ed.), Limits of graphs in group theory and computer science. Lausanne: EPFL Press/distrib. by CRC Press (2009; Zbl 1166.05001)] for more details): \(\bullet\,\) \(X\) has Yu's property A; \(\bullet\,\) \(X\) has the metric sparsification property; \(\bullet\,\) \(C^*_u(X)\) is a nuclear \(C^*\)-algebra; \(\bullet\,\) \(X\) has the \textit{operator norm localization} property; \(\bullet\,\) all \textit{ghosts} in \(C^*_u(X)\) are compact. A variant of the last property is important for this work, so we define it more precisely: an operator \(a\in B(\ell^2(X))\) is a ``ghost'' if for all \(\epsilon>0\) there exists a finite set \(A\subseteq X\) such that \(\vert\langle a\delta_x \mid \delta_y\rangle\vert<\epsilon \) for all \(x,y\in X\smallsetminus A\). Given a ``sparse'' subspace \(Z\subseteq Y\), in this paper it is assumed that \textit{all ghost projections in \(C^*_u(Z)\subseteq C^*_u(Y)\) are compact} (a space \(Z\) is sparse if it admits a countable partition in finite sets \(\{Z_n\}\) such that the distance between \(Z_n\) and \(Z_m\) goes to infinity when \(n+m\) tends to infinity). It should be noted that, while this property is not known to be a coarse invariant, the authors show that the analogous property with \(C^*(Y), C^*_s(Y)\), or \(UC^*(Y)\) in place of \(C^*_u(Y)\) is a coarse property (here, we are considering respectively the Roe algebra, the \textit{stable} Roe algebra, and the uniform algebra, see [\textit{J. Špakula} and \textit{R. Willett}, Adv. Math. 249, 289--310 (2013; Zbl 1295.46051)]). The property that sparse subspaces yield only compact ghost projections is implied by coarse emebddability into Hilbert space, which in turn is a consequence of property~A. Another consequence of property~A which plays a role in this paper is that operators in \(C^*_u(X)\) correspond to \textit{quasi-local} operators [\textit{J. Špakula} and \textit{J.-W. Zhang}, J. Funct. Anal. 278, No. 1, Article ID 108299, 25 p. (2020; Zbl 1444.46016)]. Coming to the {main results} of the paper, the authors show that, if \(C^*_u(X)\) embeds into \(C^*_u(Y)\) in such a way that compact operators correspond to compact operators, \(X\) admits a partition in \(n\) subspaces \(X_1,\dots, X_n\) such that there exists an injective coarse map \(X_k\to Y\) for \(k=1,\dots,n\). Moreover, if we assume the embedding sends minimal projections to minimal projections (known as \textit{rank preservation}), there exists a global coarse map \(X\to Y\) which is uniformly finite-to-one. The large scale {geometric consequences} of this result are: \(\bullet\,\) The asymptotic dimension of \(X\) is less than or equal to that of \(Y\); \(\bullet\,\) if \(Y\) has property A, so does \(X\); \(\bullet\,\) if \(Y\) has finite decomposition complexity, so does \(X\) (FDC is formally stronger than property A, but weaker than finite asymptotic dimension, see [\textit{E. Guentner} et al., Groups Geom. Dyn. 7, No. 2, 377--402 (2013; Zbl 1272.52041)]). Notably, the property of embeddability into Hilbert space is missing from the above list of corollaries, hence the authors ask: given a uniformly finite-to-one coarse map \(X\to Y\), if \(Y\) coarsely embeds into a Hilbert space, does the same hold for \(X\)? A crucial ingredient in the rigidity results of uniform Roe algebras is implementing an isomorphism \(\Phi: C^*_u(X)\to C^*_u(Y)\) through unitary conjugation, a fact which implies {strong continuity} and rank preservation (strong continuity can be thought as a strenghtening of injectivity because \(K(\ell^2(X))\) is a minimal strongly dense ideal in \(C^*_u(X)\)). When \(\Phi\) is not onto, neither of these two properties are automatically satisfied, which explains the need for assuming that compact operators are preserved in the result above. Moreover, while it is well known that \(\mathbb{Z}\) does not coarsely embed into \(\mathbb{N}\), the authors remark that there exists an injective coarse map \(\mathbb{Z} \to \mathbb{N}\) such that the induced embedding of uniform Roe algebras is both strongly continuous and rank preserving, showing the failure of rigidity under embeddings. Rank preservation and strong continuity hold whenever the image of \(\Phi\) is a hereditary \(C^*\)-subalgebra of \(C^*_u(Y)\), hence under this hypothesis (and the standing assumption on the sparse subspaces of \(Y\)), {the authors prove} that \(X\) coarsely embeds into \(Y\) (the embedding can be made injective if \(Y\) has property A). The technical part of the paper discusses the relations between property~A, strong continuity, and (almost) {coarse-like maps} (essentially, a map is coarse-like if it sends finite propagation operators close to finite propagation operators in a uniform way, see [\textit{B. M. Braga} et al., ``Uniform Roe coronas'', Preprint (2018), \url{arXiv:1810.07789}]).