Narrow Results

We introduce the decomposition rank, a notion of covering dimension for nuclear C*-algebras. The decomposition rank generalizes ordinary covering dimension and has nice permanence properties; in particular, it behaves well with respect to direct sums, quotients, inductive limits, unitization and quasidiagonal extensions. Moreover, it passes to hereditary subalgebras and is invariant under stabilization. It turns out that the decomposition rank can be finite only for strongly quasidiagonal C*-algebras and that it is closely related to the classification program.

We introduce weakenings of two of the more prominent open problems in the classification of C*-algebras, namely the quasidiagonality problem and the UCT problem. We show that a positive solution of the conjunction of the two weaker problems implies a positive solution of the original quasidiagonality problem as well as allows us to give a local, finitary criteria for the MF problem, which asks whether every stably finite C*-algebra is MF.

I give an overview of recent developments in the structure and classification theory of separable, simple, nuclear C*-algebras. I will in particular focus on the role of quasidiagonality and amenability for classification, and on the regularity conjecture and its interplay with internal and external approximation properties.