B(H) is not a twisted groupoid C*-algebra
Abstract
We show that for an infinite dimensional Hilbert space cannot be realized as the reduced twisted -algebra of any locally compact Hausdorff \'etale groupoid. The proof is based on the canonical conditional expectation and a structural analysis of the resulting diagonal subalgebra inside . We show that this diagonal must be an atomic abelian von Neumann algebra, and then exclude both possibilities for its spectrum. If the unit space is finite, one obtains a tracial state on , which is impossible for . If it is infinite, the groupoid structure forces a block-sparsity phenomenon for compactly supported sections, which is incompatible with . This provides the first examples of -algebras that cannot be realized as reduced twisted \'etale groupoid -algebras.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.21946,
title = {B(H) is not a twisted groupoid C*-algebra},
author = {Alcides Buss and Luiz Felipe Garcia and Tomás Pacheco},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.21946},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
10 pages, v2: minor revision; added note in the introduction acknowledging independent work by David Gao