We study reflexivity and structural properties of operator algebras generated by representations of the discrete Heisenberg semigroup. We show that the left regular representation of this semigroup gives rise to a semi-simple reflexive algebra. We exhibit an example of a representation that gives rise to a non-reflexive algebra. En route, we establish reflexivity results for subspaces of .

We show that the left regular representation of a countably infinite (discrete) group admits no finite-dimensional invariant subspaces. We also discuss a consequence of this fact, and the reason for our interest in this statement.

We then formally state, as a ‘conjecture’, a possible generalisation of the above statement to the context of fusion algebras. We prove the validity of this conjecture in the case of the fusion algebra arising from the dual of a compact Lie group.

We finally show, by example, that our conjecture is false as stated, and raise the question of whether there is a ‘good’ class of fusion algebras, which contains (a) the two ‘good classes’ discussed above, namely, discrete groups and compact group duals, and (b) only contains fusion algebras for which the conjecture is valid.

Let G be a locally compact group and H an open subgroup of G. The embeddings of group C*-algebras associated with H into the group C*-algebras associated with G are studied. Three conditions for the embeddings given in terms of C*-norms of the group algebras, group representations and positive definite functions are shown to be equivalent. As corollary, we prove that the full C*-algebra of H can be embedded into the full C*-algebra of G in a natural way as well as the case for the reduced group C*-algebras. We also show that the embeddings hold for their duals and double duals.