Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
We prove a number of results about the stable and particularly the real ranks of tensor products of ${{C}^{*}}$ -algebras under the assumption that one of the factors is commutative. In particular, we prove the following:
(1) If $X$ is any locally compact $\sigma $-compact Hausdorff space and $A$ is any ${{C}^{*}}$-algebra, then $\text{RR(}{{C}_{0}}\text{(}X\text{)}\otimes A\text{)}\le \text{dim(}X\text{)+RR(}A\text{)}$ .
(2) If $X$ is any locally compact Hausdorff space and $A$ is any purely infinite simple ${{C}^{*}}$ -algebra, then $\text{RR(}{{C}_{0}}\text{(}X\text{)}\otimes A\text{)}\le 1$ .
(3) $\text{RR(}C([0,\,1]\,)\otimes \,A)\,\ge \,1$ for any nonzero ${{C}^{*}}$-algebra $A$, and $\text{sr(}C({{[0,\,1]}^{2}})\,\otimes \,A\text{)}\,\ge \,2$ for any unital ${{C}^{*}}$-algebra $A$.
(4) If $A$ is a unital ${{C}^{*}}$-algebra such that $\text{RR(}A\text{)}\,\text{=}\,\text{0,}\,\text{s}r\text{(}A\text{)}\,\text{=}\,\text{1}$, and ${{K}_{1}}(A)=0$ , then $\text{sr(}C([0,\,1])\,\otimes \,A\text{)}\,\text{=}\,1$.
(5) There is a simple separable unital nuclear ${{C}^{*}}$-algebra $A$ such that $\text{RR(}A\text{)}\,\text{=}\,\text{1}$ and $\text{sr(}C([0,\,1])\,\otimes \,A\text{)}\,\text{=}\,1$.