Abstract. The Cuntz semigroup of a C * -algebra is an important invariant in the structure and classification theory of C * -algebras. It captures more information than K-theory but is often more delicate to handle. We systematically study the lattice and category theoretic aspects of Cuntz semigroups.Given a C * -algebra A, its (concrete) Cuntz semigroup Cu(A) is an object in the category Cu of (abstract) Cuntz semigroups, as introduced by Coward, Elliott and Ivanescu in [CEI08]. To clarify the distinction between concrete and abstract Cuntz semigroups, we will call the latter Cu-semigroups.We establish the existence of tensor products in the category Cu and study the basic properties of this construction. We show that Cu is a symmetric, monoidal category and relate Cu(A ⊗ B) with Cu(A) ⊗ Cu Cu(B) for certain classes of C * -algebras.As a main tool for our approach we introduce the category W of precompleted Cuntz semigroups. We show that Cu is a full, reflective subcategory of W. One can then easily deduce properties of Cu from respective properties of W, for example the existence of tensor products and inductive limits. The advantage is that constructions in W are much easier since the objects are purely algebraic.For every (local) C * -algebra A, the classical Cuntz semigroup W (A) together with a natural auxiliary relation is an object of W. This defines a functor from C * -algebras to W which preserves inductive limits. We deduce that the assignment A → Cu(A) defines a functor from C * -algebras to Cu which preserves inductive limits. This generalizes a result from [CEI08].We also develop a theory of Cu-semirings and their semimodules. The Cuntz semigroup of a strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra has a natural product giving it the structure of a Cu-semiring. For C * -algebras, it is an important regularity property to tensorially absorb a strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra. Accordingly, it is of particular interest to analyse the tensor products of Cu-semigroups with the Cu-semiring of a strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra. This leads us to define 'solid' Cu-semirings (adopting the terminology from solid rings), as those Cu-semirings S for which the product induces an isomorphism between S ⊗ Cu S and S. This can be considered as an analog of being strongly self-absorbing for Cu-semirings. As it turns out, if a strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra satisfies the UCT, then its Cu-semiring is solid. We prove a classification theorem for solid Cu-semirings. This raises the question of whether the Cuntz semiring of every strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra is solid.If R is a solid Cu-semiring, then a Cu-semigroup S is a semimodule over R if and only if R ⊗ Cu S is isomorphic to S. Thus, analogous to the case for C * -algebras, we can think of semimodules over R as Cu-semigroups that tensorially absorb R. We give explicit characterizations when a Cu-semigroup is such a semimodule for the cases that R is the Cu-semiring of a strongly self-absorbing C * -algebra satisfying the UCT. For instance, we show that ...

We show that a number of naturally occurring comparison relations on positive elements in a C * -algebra are equivalent to natural comparison properties of their corresponding open projections in the bidual of the C * -algebra. In particular we show that Cuntz comparison of positive elements corresponds to a comparison relation on open projections, that we call Cuntz comparison, and which is defined in terms of-and is weaker than-a comparison notion defined by Peligrad and Zsidó. The latter corresponds to a well-known comparison relation on positive elements defined by Blackadar. We show that Murray-von Neumann comparison of open projections corresponds to tracial comparison of the corresponding positive elements of the C * -algebra. We use these findings to give a new picture of the Cuntz semigroup.

We show that abstract Cuntz semigroups form a closed symmetric monoidal category. Thus, given Cuntz semigroups S and T , there is another Cuntz semigroup S, T playing the role of morphisms from S to T . Applied to C * -algebras A and B, the semigroup Cu(A), Cu(B) should be considered as the target in analogues of the UCT for bivariant theories of Cuntz semigroups.Abstract bivariant Cuntz semigroups are computable in a number of interesting cases. We also show that order-zero maps between C * -algebras naturally define elements in the respective bivariant Cuntz semigroup.

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We continue our study of group algebras acting on L p -spaces, particularly of algebras of p-pseudofunctions of locally compact groups. We focus on the functoriality properties of these objects. We show that p-pseudofunctions are functorial with respect to homomorphisms that are either injective, or whose kernel is amenable and has finite index. We also show that the universal completion of the group algebra with respect to representations on L p -spaces, is functorial with respect to quotient maps.As an application, we show that the algebras of p-and q-pseudofunctions on Z are isometrically isomorphic as Banach algebras if and only if p and q are either equal or conjugate.