New York Journal of Mathematics
NYJM Monographs, Volume 1, 2003

NYJM Monographs

  

Claude L. Schochet

A Pext primer: Pure extensions and lim1 for infinite abelian groups


Published: June 29, 2003
Keywords: Pure extensions, Pext1Z(G,H), lim1, Jensen's Theorem, infinite abelian groups, quasidiagonality, phantom maps
Subject: Primary: 20K35, 19K35, 46L80. Secondary: 18E25, 18G15, 20K40, 20K45, 47L80, 55U99

Abstract

The abelian group $\Pext GH$ of pure extensions has recently attracted the interest of workers in non-commutative topology, especially those using $KK$-theory, since under minimal hypotheses the closure of zero in the Kasparov group $KK_*(A,B)$ (for separable $C^*$-algebras $A$ and $B$) is isomorphic to the group \[ \Pext{K_*(A)}{K_*(B)}. \] As $K_*(A)$ and $K_*(B)$ can take values in all countable abelian groups, assuming that $G$ and $H$ are countable is natural.

In this mostly expository work we survey the known (and not so well-known) properties of $\pext$ and its relationship to $\lim ^1 $ and develop some new results on their computation.


Author information

Department of Mathematics, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202
claude@math.wayne.edu