Projective free algebras of continuous functions on compact Abelian groups (Q984405)

Let \(G\) be a connected compact abelian group, and let \(\Sigma\) be a semigroup of the (additive) dual group such that \(0\in\Sigma\) and if \(x,-x\in\Sigma\) then \(x=0\). It is proved that the Wiener algebra \(W(G)_\Sigma\) of functions on \(G\) and the algebra \(C(G)_\Sigma\) of continuous functions on \(G\) whose Bohr-Fourier spectra are contained in \(\Sigma\) are projective free. The latter means that for every idempotent \(X\in R^{n\times n}\), where \(R^{n\times n}\) is the \(n\times n\) matrix ring over \(R\in\{W(G)_\Sigma,C(G)_\Sigma\}\), there exist an invertible element \(S\in R^{n\times n}\) and an \(r=0,1,\dots,n\) such that \(X=S\left[\begin{smallmatrix} I_r & 0\\ 0 & 0\end{smallmatrix}\right] S^{-1}\), where \(I_r\) is the \(r\times r\) identity matrix. The proof of the projective free property makes use of homotopies of continuous maps of the maximal ideal space of the commutative unital Banach algebra \(R\). This also implies the following factorization result: Every matrix \(A\in R^{n\times n}\) having determinant \(1\) admits a factorization into a product of upper and lower unipotent matrices with entries in \(R\). As an application, the connected components of the set of Wiener-Hopf type factorable matrices are described.