Narrow Results

In this paper, we study the duality theory of Hopf C*-algebras in a general "Hilbert-space-free" framework. Our particular interests are the "full duality" and the "reduced duality". In order to study the reduced duality, we define the interesting notion of Fourier algebra of a general Hopf C*-algebra. This study of reduced duality and Fourier algebra is found to be useful in the study of other aspects of Hopf C*-algebras (see e.g. [12–14]).

For every p ≥ 2, we give a characterization of positive definite functions on a free group with finitely many generators, which can be extended to positive linear functionals on the free group C*-algebra associated with the ideal ℓ_p. This is a generalization of Haagerup's characterization for the case of the reduced free group C*-algebra. As a consequence, the canonical quotient map between the associated C*-algebras is not injective, and they have a unique tracial state.