Interactions (Q880085)

Let \(B\) be a \(C^*\)-algebra, \(A\subset B\) be a \(C^*\)-subalgebra and \(S\in B\) be a partial isometry that interacts with \(A\) in the sense that \(S^*aS={\mathcal H}(a)S^*S\) and \(SaS^*={\mathcal V}(a)SS^*\), \(a\in A\), where \({\mathcal H}\), \({\mathcal V}\) are positive linear operators on \(A\). The author describes the properties that these operators must satisfy and then removes \(B\) and \(S\) from this picture and gives an abstract definition of an interaction as a pair of maps \(({\mathcal H},{\mathcal V})\) on \(A\) satisfying the described properties. This abstract definition allows to construct \(B\) and \(S\) as above using ternary rings of operators. Then the author describes the construction of a covariance algebra from an interaction, which generalizes the Cuntz--Pimsner algebra construction.