Ideals and Formal Morita Equivalence of Algebras

Motivated by deformation quantization, we introduced in an earlier work the notion of formal Morita equivalence in the category of $^*$-algebras over a ring $\ring C$ which is the quadratic extension by $\im$ of an ordered ring $\ring R$. The goal of the present paper is twofold. First, we clarify the relationship between formal Morita equivalence, Ara's notion of Morita $^*$-equivalence of rings with involution, and strong Morita equivalence of $C^*$-algebras. Second, in the general setting of $^*$-algebras over $\ring C$, we define `closed' $^*$-ideals as the ones occuring as kernels of $^*$-representations of these algebras on pre-Hilbert spaces. These ideals form a lattice which we show is invariant under formal Morita equivalence. This result, when applied to Pedersen ideals of $C^*$-algebras, recovers the so-called Rieffel correspondence theorem. The triviality of the minimal element in the lattice of closed ideals, called the `minimal ideal', is also a formal Morita invariant and this fact can be used to describe a large class of examples of $^*$-algebras over $\ring C$ with equivalent representation theory but which are not formally Morita equivalent. We finally compute the closed $^*$-ideals of some $^*$-algebras arising in differential geometry.