Contractibility of unitary groups of II-1 factors
Question: Let be a -factor. Is the unitary group contractible when equipped with the strong operator topology? Update (August 2025): A positive answer to the question was recently announced: Jekel. The unitary group of a II1 factor is SOT-contractible. preprint arXiv:2508.05834 Background/Motivation: By Kuiper’s theorem, if is an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, then the unitary group… Weiterlesen »