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I asked this question at MSE but I did not received any answer. So I ask it here at MO

I am sorry if this question is elementary:

What is a precise definition of a contractible Banach algebra?

What is my mistake to think that there is a possible (conflict) contradictory situation in the following paper and "Wolfram" Note?:

1)Corollary 4.9 page 368 of the following paper:

http://www.ams.org/journals/tran/1962-102-02/S0002-9947-1962-0170219-7/S0002-9947-1962-0170219-7.pdf

2)Finite dimensionality of contractible $C^*$ algebras as described here:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ContractibleBanachAlgebra.html

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    $\begingroup$ Is the definition I provided below OK, or would you like further details and definitions? $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Commented May 31, 2018 at 22:29
  • $\begingroup$ @YemonChoi Thank you very much for your answer and my +1 to your interesting answer. what is the current statues of that conjecture? By 'interesting" do you mean infinite dimensional?I have another question on disk algebra A: What is a precise bimdule M such that cohomology of A with coefficient in M is non zero? $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 7:20
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    $\begingroup$ Ali, why not ask about the disk algebra in a separate question? BTW, regarding contractible Banach algebras: it is known that every contractible finite-dimensional Banach algebra is a direct sum of finitely many full matrix algebras (essentially this is a corollary of non-Banach results going back to Wedderburn and others) and we do not know any examples of infinite-dimensional contractible Banach algebras. See e.g. arxiv.org/abs/1110.6216 $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Commented Jun 2, 2018 at 1:09

1 Answer 1

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$A$ is contractible if $H^1(A,X)=0$ for all Banach $A$-bimodules $X$ (here $H^1$ denotes continuous Hochschild cohomology for Banach algebras, as defined in the works of Johnson or Helemskii). It is an implicit conjecture, going back to the 1970s, that there are no "interesting" examples of contractible Banach algebras.

The confusion may have arisen in your reading, because Kamowitz's paper (which predates Johnson's 1972 monograph) only considers left $A$-modules, which he then proceeds to regard as symmetric $A$-bimodules by definiong $x\cdot a$ to be $a\cdot x$. This works because he is only considering commutative Banach algebras $A$.

So the theorem/corollary you are referring to merely says, in more modern terminology, that $H^1(C(\Omega),X)=0$ and $H^2(C(\Omega),X)=0$ whenever $X$ is a symmetric Banach $A$-bimodule. This is much weaker than requiring vanishing degree-1 cohomology for arbitary coefficient modules; if one allows arbitrary coefficient modules then there are "dimension-shift" arguments of the form $H^{n+k}(A,M) = H^n(A, V_k(A,M))$ for some new module $V_k(A,M)$ built out of $A$ and $M$ with a new, "nasty" action. (If you try to perform this construction with $A$ commutative and $M$ symmetric then $V_k(A,M)$ is usually not symmetric, and so there is no "dimension-shift" argument for cohomology with symmetric coefficients.)

Indeed, if $A$ is commutative, then the condition $H^1(A,X)=0$ for all symmetric Banach $A$-bimodules $X$ is one of the equivalent definitions of weak amenability for commutative Banach algebras, in the sense of Bade–Curtis–Dales. There are plenty of infinite-dimensional, comutative Banach algebras which are weakly amenable; anything where the linear span of idempotents is dense will do.

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    $\begingroup$ I am not sure if I should add this comment to the main post, but Johnson shows somewhere in the 1972 monograph that this particular result of Kamowitz can be generalized considerably. Namely, if $A$ is any commutative amenable Banach algebra and $X$ is a symmetric Banach $A$-bimoodule, then $H^1(A,X)=H^2(A,X)=0$. It seems to be unknown what happens for $H^3$ $\endgroup$
    – Yemon Choi
    Commented May 30, 2018 at 20:27

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