Amenability and weak containment for actions of locally compact groups on $C^*$-algebras

In this work we introduce and study a new notion of amenability for actions of locally compact groups on $C^*$-algebras. Our definition extends the definition of amenability for actions of discrete groups due to Claire Anantharaman-Delaroche. We show that our definition has several characterizations and permanence properties analogous to those known in the discrete case. For example, for actions on commutative $C^*$-algebras, we show that our notion of amenability is equivalent to measurewise amenability. Combined with a recent result of Alex Bearden and Jason Crann, this also settles a long standing open problem about the equivalence of topological amenability and measurewise amenability for a second countable $G$-space $X$. We use our new notion of amenability to study when the maximal and reduced crossed products agree. One of our main results generalizes a theorem of Matsumura: we show that for an action of an exact locally compact group $G$ on a locally compact space $X$ the full and reduced crossed products C_0(X)\rtimes_\max G and $C_0(X)\rtimes_{\operatorname{red}} G$ coincide if and only if the action of $G$ on $X$ is amenable. We also show that the analogue of this theorem does not hold for actions on noncommutative $C^*$-algebras. Finally, we study amenability as it relates to more detailed structure in the case of $C^*$-algebras that fibre over an appropriate $G$-space $X$, and the interaction of amenability with various regularity properties such as nuclearity, exactness, and the (L)LP, and the equivariant versions of injectivity and the WEP.