Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2022
Given an irreducible lattice $\Gamma $ in the product of higher rank simple Lie groups, we prove a co-finiteness result for the $\Gamma $-invariant von Neumann subalgebras of the group von Neumann algebra $\mathcal {L}(\Gamma )$, and for the $\Gamma $-invariant unital $C^*$-subalgebras of the reduced group $C^*$-algebra $C^*_{\mathrm {red}}(\Gamma )$. We use these results to show that: (i) every $\Gamma $-invariant von Neumann subalgebra of $\mathcal {L}(\Gamma )$ is generated by a normal subgroup; and (ii) given a weakly mixing unitary representation $\pi $ of $\Gamma $, every $\Gamma $-equivariant conditional expectation on $C^*_\pi (\Gamma )$ is the canonical conditional expectation onto the $C^*$-subalgebra generated by a normal subgroup.