The Effros-Ruan conjecture for bilinear forms on C^*-algebras

TL;DR

This paper proves the Effros-Ruan conjecture for bilinear forms on all C*-algebras with a constant of one, using classical operator algebra methods rather than free probability techniques.

Contribution

It establishes the conjecture for all C*-algebras, extending previous results that required exactness or special conditions, with a new proof approach.

Findings

The conjecture holds for all C*-algebras with constant one.

The proof uses Tomita-Takesaki theory and properties of Powers factors.

The result generalizes earlier partial solutions.

Abstract

In 1991 Effros and Ruan conjectured that a certain Grothendieck-type inequality for a bilinear form on C$^*$-algebras holds if (and only if) the bilinear form is jointly completely bounded. In 2002 Pisier and Shlyakhtenko proved that this inequality holds in the more general setting of operator spaces, provided that the operator spaces in question are exact. Moreover, they proved that the conjecture of Effros and Ruan holds for pairs of C$^*$-algebras, of which at least one is exact. In this paper we prove that the Effros-Ruan conjecture holds for general C$^*$-algebras, with constant one. More precisely, we show that for every jointly completely bounded (for short, j.c.b.) bilinear form on a pair of C$^*$-algebras $A$ and $B$, there exist states $f_1$, $f_2$ on $A$ and $g_1$, $g_2$ on $B$ such that for all $a\in A$ and $b\in B$, |u(a, b)| \leq ||u||_{jcb}(f_1(aa^*)^{1/2}g_1(b^*b)^{1/2} + f_2(a^*a)^{1/2}g_2(bb^*)^{1/2}) . While the approach by Pisier and Shlyakhtenko relies on free probability techniques, our proof uses more classical operator algebra theory, namely, Tomita-Takesaki theory and special properties of the Powers factors of type III$_\lambda$, $0< \lambda< 1$ .