On approximate factorizations of completely positive maps (Q807944)

The notion of a correspondence from a von Neumann algebra to another von Neumann algebra has been introduced by A. Connes in an unpublished work [see, however, \textit{A. Connes} and \textit{V. Jones}, Bull. London Math. Soc. 17, 57--62 (1985; Zbl 1190.46047)]. In the paper under review, the authors show that weak containment of correspondences can be expressed in terms of approximate factorization of completely positive maps. This is analogous to Fell's classical result on weak containment of representations and extends previous work of \textit{J. A. Mingo} [J. Funct. Anal. 89, No.~1, 90--105 (1990; Zbl 0715.46027)] who considered the case of finite von Neumann algebras. Moreover, characterizations are given of inner completely positive maps and of so-called coarse correspondences. The case of an injective factor is studied in the final section.