Irreducibly represented groups
A group is said to be irreducibly represented if it has a faithful irreducible unitary representation. The class of irreducibly represented groups includes all groups for which the reduced (or the universal) group C*-algebra is primitive, and so the class includes all C*-simple groups (see \textit{G. J. Murphy} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 35, 697--705 (2003; Zbl 1060.46041)] and \textit{P. de la Harpe} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 39, 1--26 (2007; Zbl 1123.22004)] for accounts of primitivity and simplicity of group C*-algebras). A finite abelian group is irreducibly represented if and only if it is cyclic. The main result of the paper under review is a characterisation of irreducibly represented countable groups. It is immediate from the characterisation that, in particular, torsion-free groups and infinite conjugacy class groups are irreducibly represented. The paper is well written and interesting to read. Presenting the main results in detail requires some notation, to which we now turn. Let \(\Gamma\) be a countable group. A foot of \(\Gamma\) is a minimal normal subgroup of \(\Gamma\). Denote the collection of all finite feet of \(\Gamma\) by \(\mathcal F\), and partition \(\mathcal F\) into two subclasses \(\mathcal A\) and \(\mathcal H\), where \(\mathcal A\) consists of abelian groups and \(\mathcal H\) of non-abelian ones. Denote the subgroups generated by \(\bigcup \mathcal F\), \(\bigcup \mathcal A\) and \(\bigcup \mathcal H\) by \(\text{MS}(\Gamma)\), \(\text{MA}(\Gamma)\) and \(\text{MH}(\Gamma)\), respectively. The subgroup \(\text{MS}(\Gamma)\) is called the minisocle of \(\Gamma\), and it has a decomposition \(\text{MS}(\Gamma)=\text{MA}(\Gamma)\oplus\text{MH}(\Gamma)\). Moreover, \(\text{MA}(\Gamma) = \bigoplus_{i\in I} A_i\) for some subset \(\{A_i\}_{i\in I}\) of \(\mathcal A\), whereas \(\text{MH}(\Gamma) = \bigoplus_{H\in\mathcal H} H\). A representation \(\sigma\) of a normal subgroup \(N\) of \(\Gamma\) is said to be \(\Gamma\)-faithful if \(\bigcap_{\gamma\in\Gamma} \text{ker}\,\sigma^\gamma = \{e\}\), where \(e\) is the identity of \(\Gamma\) and \(\sigma^\gamma(n) = \sigma(\gamma n \gamma^{-1})\), \(n\in N\). The main result of the paper says that the following statements are equivalent: (i) \(\Gamma\) is irreducibly represented; (ii) \(\text{MA}(\Gamma)\) has a \(\Gamma\)-faithful character; (iii) \(\text{MS}(\Gamma)\) has a \(\Gamma\)-faithful irreducible representation; (iv) for every finite subset \(E\) of \(I\), there exists \(x\) in \(\text{MA}_E(\Gamma):= \bigoplus_{i\in E} A_i\) such that the \(\Gamma\)-conjugacy class of \(x\) generates \(\text{MA}_E(\Gamma)\); (v) for every pair of finite subsets \(E\subset I\) and \(F\subset\mathcal H\), there exists \(x\) in \(\text{MS}_{E,F}(\Gamma):= (\bigoplus_{i\in E} A_i)\oplus (\bigoplus_{H\in F} H)\) such that the \(\Gamma\)-conjugacy class of \(x\) generates \(\text{MS}_{E,F}(\Gamma)\). \textit{W. Gaschütz} [Math. Nachr. 12, 253--255 (1954; Zbl 0056.25703)] has shown the equivalence of (i), (iv) and (v) for finite groups. The authors also characterise those countable subgroups \(\Delta\) of the unitary group of a separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space \(H\) for which the bicommutant \(\Delta\) is all of \(B(H)\), the algebra of all bounded linear operators on \(H\). Indeed, a countable group \(\Gamma\) is isomorphic to such \(\Delta\) if and only if \(\Gamma\) has an \textit{infinite-dimensional} faithful irreducible unitary representation, and the authors show that the latter is true if and only if \(\Gamma\) is irreducibly represented (and so satisfies the conditions given above) and is not virtually abelian (i.e., \(\Gamma\) does not have an abelian subgroup of finite index).
- Groups with faithful irreducible projective unitary representations.
- Construction of irreducible unitary representations of amalgams of discrete Abelian groups
- Irreducible representations of groupoid 𝐶*-algebras
- Groups having a faithful irreducible representation.
- Irreducible induced representations of ICC-groups
- Constructing irreducible representations of discrete groups
- On the irreducibility of representations of measurable current groups
- Groups with irreducibly unfaithful subsets for unitary representations
- Cohomological equation and cocycle rigidity of discrete parabolic actions in some higher-rank Lie groups
- Groups having a faithful irreducible representation.
- Groups with faithful irreducible projective unitary representations.
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 635808 (Why is no real title available?)
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1743708 (Why is no real title available?)
- The full group \(C^{\ast}\)-algebra of the modular group is primitive
- A lattice theoretic characterization for the existence of a faithful irreducible representation
- Cohomological equation and cocycle rigidity of parabolic actions in some higher-rank Lie groups
This page was built for publication: Irreducibly represented groups
Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q951968)
