We give a unified overview of the study of the effects of additional set theoretic axioms on quotient structures. Our focus is on rigidity, measured in terms of existence (or rather non-existence) of suitably non-trivial automorphisms of the quotients in question. A textbook example for the study of this topic is the Boolean algebra $\mathcal {P}({\mathbb N})/\operatorname {\mathrm {Fin}}$, whose behavior is the template around which this survey revolves: Forcing axioms imply that all of its automorphisms are trivial, in the sense that they are induced by almost permutations of ${\mathbb N}$, while under the Continuum Hypothesis this rigidity fails and $\mathcal {P}({\mathbb N})/\operatorname {\mathrm {Fin}}$ admits uncountably many non-trivial automorphisms. We consider far-reaching generalisations of this phenomenon and present a wide variety of situations where analogous patterns persist, focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the categories of Boolean algebras, Čech–Stone remainders, and $\mathrm {C}^{*}$-algebras. We survey the state of the art and the future prospects of this field, discussing the major open problems and outlining the main ideas of the proofs whenever possible.

We prove that every locally compact second countable group G arises as the outer automorphism group $\operatorname{Out} M$ of a II1 factor, which was so far only known for totally disconnected groups, compact groups, and a few isolated examples. We obtain this result by proving that every locally compact second countable group is a centralizer group, a class of Polish groups that arise naturally in ergodic theory and that may all be realized as $\operatorname{Out} M$.

In Dong et al. (2022, Journal of Operator Theory 88, 365–406), the authors addressed the question of whether surjective maps preserving the norm of a symmetric Kubo-Ando mean can be extended to Jordan $\ast $-isomorphisms. The question was affirmatively answered for surjective maps between the positive definite cones of unital $C^{*}$-algebras for certain specific classes of symmetric Kubo-Ando means. Here, we give a comprehensive answer to this question for surjective maps between the positive definite cones of $AW^{*}$-algebras preserving the norm of any symmetric Kubo-Ando mean.

Let $\mathfrak{C}$ be the smallest class of countable discrete groups with the following properties: (i) $\mathfrak{C}$ contains the trivial group, (ii) $\mathfrak{C}$ is closed under isomorphisms, countable increasing unions and extensions by $\mathbb{Z}$. Note that $\mathfrak{C}$ contains all countable discrete torsion-free abelian groups and poly-$\mathbb{Z}$ groups. Also, $\mathfrak{C}$ is a subclass of the class of countable discrete torsion-free elementary amenable groups. In this article, we show that if $\Gamma\in \mathfrak{C}$, then all strongly outer actions of Γ on the Razak–Jacelon algebra $\mathcal{W}$ are cocycle conjugate to each other. This can be regarded as an analogous result of Szabó’s result for strongly self-absorbing C$^*$-algebras.

In 1988, Haagerup and Størmer conjectured that every pointwise inner automorphism of a type ${\rm III_1}$ factor is a composition of an inner and a modular automorphism. We study this conjecture and prove that every type ${\rm III_1}$ factor with trivial bicentralizer indeed satisfies this condition. In particular, this shows that Haagerup and Størmer's conjecture holds in full generality if Connes’ bicentralizer problem has an affirmative answer. Our proof is based on Popa's intertwining theory and Marrakchi's recent work on relative bicentralizers.

We discuss a strategy for classifying anomalous actions through model action absorption. We use this to upgrade existing classification results for Rokhlin actions of finite groups on C$^*$-algebras, with further assuming a UHF-absorption condition, to a classification of anomalous actions on these C$^*$-algebras.

In this article, the question of whether the Löwner partial order on the positive cone of an operator algebra is determined by the norm of any arbitrary Kubo–Ando mean is studied. The question was affirmatively answered for certain classes of Kubo–Ando means, yet the general case was left as an open problem. We here give a complete answer to this question, by showing that the norm of every symmetric Kubo–Ando mean is order-determining, i.e., if $A,B\in \mathcal B(H)^{++}$ satisfy $\Vert A\sigma X\Vert \le \Vert B\sigma X\Vert $ for every $X\in \mathcal {A}^{{++}}$, where $\mathcal A$ is the C*-subalgebra generated by $B-A$ and I, then $A\le B$.

We apply a method inspired by Popa's intertwining-by-bimodules technique to investigate inner conjugacy of MASAs in graph $C^*$-algebras. First, we give a new proof of non-inner conjugacy of the diagonal MASA ${\mathcal {D}}_E$ to its non-trivial image under a quasi-free automorphism, where $E$ is a finite transitive graph. Changing graphs representing the algebras, this result applies to some non quasi-free automorphisms as well. Then, we exhibit a large class of MASAs in the Cuntz algebra ${\mathcal {O}}_n$ that are not inner conjugate to the diagonal ${\mathcal {D}}_n$.

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.

We resolve the isomorphism problem for tensor algebras of unital multivariable dynamical systems. Specifically, we show that unitary equivalence after a conjugation for multivariable dynamical systems is a complete invariant for complete isometric isomorphisms between their tensor algebras. In particular, this settles a conjecture of Davidson and Kakariadis, Inter. Math. Res. Not. 2014 (2014), 1289–1311 relating to work of Arveson, Acta Math. 118 (1967), 95–109 from the 1960s, and extends related work of Kakariadis and Katsoulis, J. Noncommut. Geom. 8 (2014), 771–787.

Given a self-similar set K defined from an iterated function system $\Gamma =(\gamma _{1},\ldots ,\gamma _{d})$ and a set of functions $H=\{h_{i}:K\to \mathbb {R}\}_{i=1}^{d}$ satisfying suitable conditions, we define a generalized gauge action on Kajiwara–Watatani algebras $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and their Toeplitz extensions $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$. We then characterize the KMS states for this action. For each $\beta \in (0,\infty )$, there is a Ruelle operator $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta }$, and the existence of KMS states at inverse temperature $\beta $ is related to this operator. The critical inverse temperature $\beta _{c}$ is such that $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta _{c}}$ has spectral radius 1. If $\beta <\beta _{c}$, there are no KMS states on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$; if $\beta =\beta _{c}$, there is a unique KMS state on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$ which is given by the eigenmeasure of $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta _{c}}$; and if $\beta>\beta _{c}$, including $\beta =\infty $, the extreme points of the set of KMS states on $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$ are parametrized by the elements of K and on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ by the set of branched points.

Suppose that $\mathcal {A}$ is a unital subhomogeneous C*-algebra. We show that every central sequence in $\mathcal {A}$ is hypercentral if and only if every pointwise limit of a sequence of irreducible representations is multiplicity free. We also show that every central sequence in $\mathcal {A}$ is trivial if and only if every pointwise limit of irreducible representations is irreducible. Finally, we give a nice representation of the latter algebras.

Bożejko and Speicher associated a finite von Neumann algebra MT to a self-adjoint operator T on a complex Hilbert space of the form $\mathcal {H}\otimes \mathcal {H}$ which satisfies the Yang–Baxter relation and $ \left\| T \right\| < 1$. We show that if dim$(\mathcal {H})$ ⩾ 2, then MT is a factor when T admits an eigenvector of some special form.

This note corrects an error in our paper “A Galois correspondence for reduced crossed products of unital simple $\text{C}^{\ast }$-algebras by discrete groups”, http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CJM-2018-014-6. The main results of the original paper are unchanged.

Let M be an arbitrary factor and $\sigma : \Gamma \curvearrowright M$ an action of a discrete group. In this paper, we study the fullness of the crossed product $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $. When Γ is amenable, we obtain a complete characterization: the crossed product factor $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ is full if and only if M is full and the quotient map $\overline {\sigma } : \Gamma \rightarrow {\rm out}(M)$ has finite kernel and discrete image. This answers the question of Jones from [11]. When M is full and Γ is arbitrary, we give a sufficient condition for $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ to be full which generalizes both Jones' criterion and Choda's criterion. In particular, we show that if M is any full factor (possibly of type III) and Γ is a non-inner amenable group, then the crossed product $M \rtimes _\sigma \Gamma $ is full.

Let a discrete group $G$ act on a unital simple $\text{C}^{\ast }$-algebra $A$ by outer automorphisms. We establish a Galois correspondence $H\mapsto A\rtimes _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},r}H$ between subgroups of $G$ and $\text{C}^{\ast }$-algebras $B$ satisfying $A\subseteq B\subseteq A\rtimes _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},r}G$, where $A\rtimes _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},r}G$ denotes the reduced crossed product. For a twisted dynamical system $(A,G,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E})$, we also prove the corresponding result for the reduced twisted crossed product $A\rtimes _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},r}^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E}}G$.

We give a short proof of a result of T. Bates and T. Giordano stating that any uniformly bounded Borel cocycle into a finite von Neumann algebra is cohomologous to a unitary cocycle. We also point out a separability issue in their proof. Our approach is based on the existence of a non-positive curvature metric on the positive cone of a finite von Neumann algebra.

We present an overview of the recent developments in the study of the classification problem for automorphisms of C*-algebras from the perspective of Borel complexity theory.

We introduce generalized triple homomorphisms between Jordan–Banach triple systems as a concept that extends the notion of generalized homomorphisms between Banach algebras given by K. Jarosz and B. E. Johnson in 1985 and 1987, respectively. We prove that every generalized triple homomorphism between $\text{J}{{\text{B}}^{*}}$ -triples is automatically continuous. When particularized to ${{C}^{*}}$ -algebras, we rediscover one of the main theorems established by Johnson. We will also consider generalized triple derivations from a Jordan–Banach triple $E$ into a Jordan–Banach triple $E$ -module, proving that every generalized triple derivation from a $\text{J}{{\text{B}}^{*}}$ -triple $E$ into itself or into ${{E}^{*}}$ is automatically continuous.

For monotone complete ${{C}^{*}}$ -algebras $A\subset B$ with $A$ contained in $B$ as a monotone closed ${{C}^{*}}$ -subalgebra, the relation $X=AsA$ gives a bijection between the set of all monotone closed linear subspaces $X$ of $B$ such that $AX+XA\subset X$ and $X{{X}^{*}}+{{X}^{*}}X\subset A$ and a set of certain partial isometries $s$ in the “normalizer” of $A$ in $B$ , and similarly for the map $s\mapsto \text{Ad }s$ between the latter set and a set of certain “partial $*$ -automorphisms” of $A$ . We introduce natural inverse semigroup structures in the set of such $X$ 's and the set of partial $*$ -automorphisms of $A$ , modulo a certain relation, so that the composition of these maps induces an inverse semigroup homomorphism between them. For a large enough $B$ the homomorphism becomes surjective and all the partial $*$ -automorphisms of $A$ are realized via partial isometries in $B$ . In particular, the inverse semigroup associated with a type $\text{I}{{\text{I}}_{1}}$ von Neumann factor, modulo the outer automorphism group, can be viewed as the fundamental group of the factor. We also consider the ${{C}^{*}}$ -algebra version of these results.