Noncommutative Cartan sub-algebras of C*-algebras

Abstract

J. Renault has recently found a generalization of the caracterization of C*-diagonals obtained by A. Kumjian in the eighties, which in turn is a C*-algebraic version of J. Feldman and C. Moore's well known Theorem on Cartan subalgebras of von Neumann algebras. Here we propose to give a version of Renault's result in which the Cartan subalgebra is not necessarily commutative [sic]. Instead of describing a Cartan pair as a twisted groupoid C*-algebra we use N. Sieben's notion of Fell bundles over inverse semigroups which we believe should be thought of as "twisted etale groupoids with noncommutative unit space". En passant we prove a theorem on uniqueness of conditional expectations.