Talk page

Title:
Paving over arbitrary MASAs in von Neumann algebras

Speaker:
Stefaan Vaes

Abstract:
I will present some recent work with Stefaan Vaes, in which we consider a paving property for a MASA $A$ in a von Neumann algebra $M$, that we call \emph{\so-paving}, involving approximation in the {\so}-topology, rather than in norm (as in classical Kadison-Singer paving). If $A$ is the range of a normal conditional expectation, then {\so}-paving is equivalent to norm paving in the ultrapower inclusion $A^\omega\subset M^\omega$. We conjecture that any MASA in any von Neumann algebra satisfies {\so}-paving. We use recent work of Marcus-Spielman-Srivastava to check this for all MASAs in $\mathcal B(\ell^2\mathbb N)$, all Cartan subalgebras in amenable von Neumann algebras and in group measure space II$_1$ factors arising from profinite actions. By work of mine from 2013, the conjecture also holds true for singular MASAs in II$_1$ factors, and we obtain an improved paving size $C\varepsilon^{-2}$, which we show to be sharp.

Link:
https://www.msri.org/workshops/754/schedules/19569

Workshop:
MSRI- Hot Topics: Kadison-Singer, Interlacing Polynomials, and Beyond