English

Every 2-quasitrace is a trace

Operator Algebras 2025-02-03 v2

Abstract

A heretofore longstanding open question of Kaplansky was, "Is every Type II_1 AW*-factor a von Neumann algebra?" In this paper, we answer this question in the affirmative. As a consequence, we establish that every 2-quasitrace on a unital C*-algebra is a trace.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.13088,
  title  = {Every 2-quasitrace is a trace},
  author = {Alec Gow},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.13088},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

There is a critical conflation between a W*-algebra and a concrete von Neumann algebra in Proposition 5.2. A priori, there is no reason that each of the W*-algebras of Proposition 5.2 should have a von Neumann algebra representation on the same Hilbert space, which is required in Pedersen's Theorem (Theorem 4.1). This leaves a critical gap in the argument of Theorem A (Corollary 5.3)

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:13:57.469Z