English

Bass-Serre rigidity results in von Neumann algebras

Operator Algebras 2019-12-19 v5

Abstract

We obtain new Bass-Serre type rigidity results for II1{\rm II_1} equivalence relations and their von Neumann algebras, coming from free ergodic actions of free products of groups on the standard probability space. As an application, we show that any non-amenable factor arising as an amalgamated free product of von Neumann algebras M1BM2\mathcal{M}_1 \ast_B \mathcal{M}_2 over an abelian von Neumann algebra BB, is prime, i.e. cannot be written as a tensor product of diffuse factors. This gives, both in the type II1{\rm II_1} and in the type III{\rm III} case, new examples of prime factors.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0805.1566,
  title  = {Bass-Serre rigidity results in von Neumann algebras},
  author = {Ionut Chifan and Cyril Houdayer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.1566},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

27 pages.