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A quasi-representation of a group is a map from the group into a matrix algebra (or similar object) that approximately satisfies the relations needed to be a representation. Work of many people starting with Kazhdan and Voiculescu, and recently advanced by Dadarlat, Eilers-Shulman-S\o{}rensen and others, has shown that there are topological obstructions to approximating unitary quasi-representations of groups by honest representations, where `approximation' is understood to be with respect to the operator norm. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether approximation is possible if the known obstructions vanish, partially generalizing work of Gong-Lin and Eilers-Loring-Pedersen for the free abelian group of rank two, and the Klein bottle group. We show that this is possible, at least in a weak sense, for some `low-dimensional' groups including fundamental groups of closed surfaces, certain Baumslag-Solitar groups, free-by-cyclic groups, and many fundamental groups of three manifolds. The techniques used in the paper are $K$-theoretic: they have their origin in Baum-Connes-Kasparov type assembly maps, and in the Elliott program to classify $C^*$-algebras; Kasparov's bivariant KK-theory is a crucial tool. The key new technical ingredients are: a stable uniqueness theorem in the sense of Dadarlat-Eilers and Lin that works for non-exact $C^*$-algebras; and an analysis of maps on $K$-theory with finite coefficients in terms of the relative eta invariants of Atiyah-Patodi-Singer. Despite the proofs going through $K$-theoretic machinery, the main theorems can be stated in elementary terms that do not need any $K$-theory., Comment: Version 2 has some more details, minor corrections, and improved references

We prove the rational HK-conjecture for a large class of transformation groupoids in the case when the relevant action has torsion-free stabilizers. A revised version of the rational HK-conjecture in the case of (possibly) torsion stabilizers is introduced and proved for a large class of transformation groupoids. In particular, this revised version holds for Scarparo's counterexamples to the original rational HK-conjecture. The key tools used are the Baum-Connes conjecture and a Chern character defined by Raven., Comment: 43 pages

We provide a characterization of when a coarse equivalence between coarse disjoint unions of expander graphs is close to a bijective coarse equivalence. We use this to show that if the uniform Roe algebras of coarse disjoint unions of expanders graphs are isomorphic, then the metric spaces must be bijectively coarsely equivalent.

We study which von Neumann algebras can be embedded into uniform Roe algebras and quasi-local algebras associated to a uniformly locally finite metric space $X$. Under weak assumptions, these $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras contain embedded copies of $\prod_{k}\mathrm{M}_{n_k}(\mathbb C)$ for any \emph{bounded} countable (possibly finite) collection $(n_k)_k$ of natural numbers; we aim to show that they cannot contain any other von Neumann algebras. One of our main results shows that $L_\infty[0,1]$ does not embed into any of those algebras, even by a not-necessarily-normal $*$-homomorphism. In particular, it follows from the structure theory of von Neumann algebras that any von Neumann algebra which embeds into such algebra must be of the form $\prod_{k}\mathrm{M}_{n_k}(\mathbb C)$ for some countable (possibly finite) collection $(n_k)_k$ of natural numbers. Under additional assumptions, we also show that the sequence $(n_k)_k$ has to be bounded: in other words, the only embedded von Neumann algebras are the ``obvious'' ones.

Complexity rank for $C^*$-algebras was introduced by the second author and Yu for applications towards the UCT: very roughly, this rank is at most $n$ if you can repeatedly cut the $C^*$-algebra in half at most $n$ times, and end up with something finite dimensional. In this paper, we study complexity rank, and also a weak complexity rank that we introduce; having weak complexity rank at most one can be thought of as `two-colored local finite-dimensionality'. We first show that for separable, unital, and simple $C^*$-algebras, weak complexity rank one is equivalent to the conjunction of nuclear dimension one and real rank zero. In particular, this shows that the UCT for all nuclear $C^*$-algebras is equivalent to equality of the weak complexity rank and the complexity ranks for Kirchberg algebras with zero $K$-theory groups. However, we also show using a $K$-theoretic obstruction (torsion in $K_1$) that weak complexity rank one and complexity rank one are not the same in general. We then use the Kirchberg-Phillips classification theorem to compute the complexity rank of all UCT Kirchberg algebras: it is always one or two, with the rank one case occurring if and only if the $K_1$-group is torsion free., Comment: The second version incorporates various referee suggestions, including a substantial improvement to the results of Section 3.2. This should be the final version, to appear in the M\"unster Journal of Mathematics

We show that if $X$ and $Y$ are uniformly locally finite metric spaces whose uniform Roe algebras, $\cstu(X)$ and $\cstu(Y)$, are isomorphic as \cstar-algebras, then $X$ and $Y$ are coarsely equivalent metric spaces. Moreover, we show that coarse equivalence between $X$ and $Y$ is equivalent to Morita equivalence between $\cstu(X)$ and $\cstu(Y)$. As an application, we obtain that if $\Gamma$ and $\Lambda$ are finitely generated groups, then the crossed products $\ell_\infty(\Gamma)\rtimes_r\Gamma$ and $ \ell_\infty(\Lambda)\rtimes_r\Lambda$ are isomorphic if and only if $\Gamma$ and $\Lambda$ are bi-Lipschitz equivalent., Comment: 26 pages, second version with revisions

A $C^*$-algebra satisfies the Universal Coefficient Theorem (UCT) of Rosenberg and Schochet if it is equivalent in Kasparov's $KK$-theory to a commutative $C^*$-algebra. This paper is motivated by the problem of establishing the range of validity of the UCT, and in particular, whether the UCT holds for all nuclear $C^*$-algebras. We introduce the idea of a $C^*$-algebra that "decomposes" over a class $\mathcal{C}$ of $C^*$-algebras. Roughly, this means that locally, there are approximately central elements that approximately cut the $C^*$-algebra into two $C^*$-subalgebras from $\mathcal{C}$ that have well-behaved intersection. We show that if a $C^*$-algebra decomposes over the class of nuclear, UCT $C^*$-algebras, then it satisfies the UCT. The argument is based on controlled $KK$-theory, as introduced by the authors in earlier work. Nuclearity is used via Kasparov's Hilbert module version of Voiculescu's theorem, and Haagerup's theorem that nuclear $C^*$-algebras are amenable We say that a $C^*$-algebra has finite complexity if it is in the smallest class of $C^*$-algebras containing the finite-dimensional $C^*$-algebras, and closed under decomposability; our main result implies that all $C^*$-algebras in this class satisfy the UCT. The class of $C^*$-algebras with finite complexity is large, and comes with an ordinal-number invariant measuring the complexity level. We conjecture that a $C^*$-algebra of finite nuclear dimension and real rank zero has finite complexity; this (and several other related conjectures) would imply the UCT for all separable nuclear $C^*$-algebras. We also give new local formulations of the UCT, and some other necessary and sufficient conditions for the UCT to hold for all nuclear $C^*$-algebras., Comment: Version 4 contains various small corrections and clarifications, and adds a new subsection 7.1 to clarify the proof of the main theorem, and to what extent the ingredients for this are 'local' in nature. Version 4 is the final version, to appear in Memoirs of the EMS

We prove that the homology groups of a principal ample groupoid vanish in dimensions greater than the dynamic asymptotic dimension of the groupoid (as a side-effect of our methods, we also give a new model of groupoid homology in terms of the Tor groups of homological algebra, which might be of independent interest). As a consequence, the K-theory of the $C^*$-algebras associated with groupoids of finite dynamic asymptotic dimension can be computed from the homology of the underlying groupoid. In particular, principal ample groupoids with dynamic asymptotic dimension at most two and finitely generated second homology satisfy Matui's HK-conjecture. We also construct explicit maps from the groupoid homology groups to the K-theory groups of their $C^*$-algebras in degrees zero and one, and investigate their properties., Comment: Version 3 adds a new description of the comparison map in dimension one based on the ABC spectral sequence, and shows that it is the same as the description based on mapping cones. This is the final version, to appear in Proceedings of the LMS

We introduce controlled $KK$-theory groups associated to a pair $(A,B)$ of separable $C^*$-algebras. Roughly, these consist of elements of the usual $K$-theory group $K_0(B)$ that approximately commute with elements of $A$. Our main results show that these groups are related to Kasparov's $KK$-groups by a Milnor exact sequence, in such a way that R\o{}rdam's $KL$-group is identified with an inverse limit of our controlled $KK$-groups. In the case that the $C^*$-algebras involved satisfy the UCT, our Milnor exact sequence agrees with the Milnor sequence associated to a $KK$-filtration in the sense of Schochet, although our results are independent of the UCT. Applications to the UCT will be pursued in subsequent work., Comment: Version 3 has various corrections, clarifications, and small simplifications

In recent years, a large class of nuclear $C^\ast$-algebras have been classified, modulo an assumption on the Universal Coefficient Theorem (UCT). We think this assumption is redundant and propose a strategy for proving it. Indeed, following the original proof of the classification theorem, we propose bridging the gap between reduction theorems and examples. While many such bridges are possible, various approximate ideal structures appear quite promising., Comment: 13 pages; to appear in the Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics

In this work we introduce and study a new notion of amenability for actions of locally compact groups on $C^*$-algebras. Our definition extends the definition of amenability for actions of discrete groups due to Claire Anantharaman-Delaroche. We show that our definition has several characterizations and permanence properties analogous to those known in the discrete case. For example, for actions on commutative $C^*$-algebras, we show that our notion of amenability is equivalent to measurewise amenability. Combined with a recent result of Alex Bearden and Jason Crann, this also settles a long standing open problem about the equivalence of topological amenability and measurewise amenability for a second countable $G$-space $X$. We use our new notion of amenability to study when the maximal and reduced crossed products agree. One of our main results generalizes a theorem of Matsumura: we show that for an action of an exact locally compact group $G$ on a locally compact space $X$ the full and reduced crossed products $C_0(X)\rtimes_\max G$ and $C_0(X)\rtimes_{\operatorname{red}} G$ coincide if and only if the action of $G$ on $X$ is amenable. We also show that the analogue of this theorem does not hold for actions on noncommutative $C^*$-algebras. Finally, we study amenability as it relates to more detailed structure in the case of $C^*$-algebras that fibre over an appropriate $G$-space $X$, and the interaction of amenability with various regularity properties such as nuclearity, exactness, and the (L)LP, and the equivariant versions of injectivity and the WEP., Comment: Some small changes (mostly in the introduction) and an adjustment to the AMS book style. This is the final version which will appear in the Memoirs of the AMS

We show that if $C_u^*(X)$ is a uniform Roe algebra associated to a bounded geometry metric space X, then all bounded derivations on $C^*_u(X)$ are inner., Comment: 9 pages

We introduce a notion of approximate ideal structure for a $C^*$-algebra, and use it as a tool to study $K$-theory groups. The notion is motivated by the classical Mayer-Vietoris sequence, by the theory of nuclear dimension as introduced by Winter and Zacharias, and by the theory of dynamical complexity introduced by Guentner, Yu, and the author. A major inspiration for our methods comes from recent work of Oyono-Oyono and Yu in the setting of controlled $K$-theory of filtered C*-algebras; we do not, however, use that language in this paper. We give two main applications. The first is a vanishing result for $K$-theory that is relevant to the Baum-Connes conjecture. The second is a permanence result for the K\"{u}nneth formula in $C^*$-algebra $K$-theory: roughly, this says that if $A$ can be decomposed into a pair of subalgebras $(C,D)$ such that $C$, $D$, and $C\cap D$ all satisfy the K\"{u}nneth formula, then $A$ itself satisfies the K\"{u}nneth formula., Comment: 65 pages

This paper is motivated primarily by the question of when the maximal and reduced crossed products of a $G$-$C^*$-algebra agree (particularly inspired by results of Matsumura and Suzuki), and the relationships with various notions of amenability and injectivity. We give new connections between these notions. Key tools in this include the natural equivariant analogues of injectivity, and of Lance's weak expectation property: we also give complete characterizations of these equivariant properties, and some connections with injective envelopes in the sense of Hamana., Comment: 32 pages

We give a proof of the Bott periodicity theorem for topological K-theory of C*-algebras based on Loring's treatment of Voiculescu's almost commuting matrices and Atiyah's rotation trick. We also explain how this relates to the Dirac operator on the circle; this uses Yu's localization algebra and an associated explicit formula for the pairing between the first K-homology and first K-theory groups of a (separable) C*-algebra., Comment: 15 pages

We introduce a notion of topological property (T) for \'etale groupoids. This simultaneously generalizes Kazhdan's property (T) for groups and geometric property (T) for coarse spaces. One main goal is to use this property (T) to prove the existence of so-called Kazhdan projections in both maximal and reduced groupoid $C^*$-algebras, and explore applications of this to exactness, K-exactness, and the Baum-Connes conjecture. We also study various examples, and discuss the relationship with other notions of property (T) for groupoids and with a-T-menability., Comment: 56 pages. Version 2 makes (fairly minor) corrections and clarifications

A crossed product functor is said to be injective if it takes injective morphisms to injective morphisms. In this paper we show that every locally compact group $G$ admits a maximal injective crossed product $A\mapsto A\rtimes_{\inj}G$. Moreover, we give an explicit construction of this functor that depends only on the maximal crossed product and the existence of $G$-injective $C^*$-algebras; this is a sort of a `dual' result to the construction of the minimal exact crossed product functor, the latter having been studied for its relationship to the Baum-Connes conjecture. It turns out that $\rtimes_\inj$ has interesting connections to exactness, the local lifting property, amenable traces, and the weak expectation property., Comment: 18 pages

In this paper we study structural and uniqueness questions for Cartan subalgebras of uniform Roe algebras. We characterise when an inclusion $B\subseteq A$ of $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebras is isomorphic to the canonical inclusion of $\ell^\infty(X)$ inside a uniform Roe algebra $C^*_u(X)$ associated to a metric space of bounded geometry. We obtain uniqueness results for `Roe Cartans' inside uniform Roe algebras up to automorphism when $X$ coarsely embeds into Hilbert space, and up to inner automorphism when $X$ has property A., Comment: 45 Pages, Groups, Geom., Dynam., to appear

Given a locally compact group $G$, we study the smallest exact crossed-product functor $(A,G,\alpha)\mapsto A\rtimes_{\mathcal E} G$ on the category of $G$-$C^*$-dynamical systems. As an outcome, we show that the smallest exact crossed-product functor is automatically Morita compatible, and hence coincides with the functor $\rtimes_{\mathcal{E}}$ as introduced by Baum, Guentner, and Willett in their reformulation of the Baum-Connes conjecture (see [2]). We show that the corresponding group algebra $C_{\mathcal{E}}^*(G)$ always coincides with the reduced group algebra, thus showing that the new formulation of the Baum-Connes conjecture coincides with the classical one in the case of trivial coefficients. Erratum: After publication of this manuscript, some gaps have unfortunately been found affecting some parts of the paper. We therefore included an appendix with an erratum at the end of this paper explaining the mistakes and keeping the original published version unchanged., Comment: 37 pages

The goal of this paper is to study when uniform Roe algebras have certain $C^*$-algebraic properties in terms of the underlying space: in particular, we study properties like having stable rank one or real rank zero that are thought of as low dimensional, and connect these to low dimensionality of the underlying space in the sense of the asymptotic dimension of Gromov. Some of these results (for example, on stable rank one, cancellation, strong quasidiagonality, and finite decomposition rank) give definitive characterizations, while others (on real rank zero) are only partial and leave a lot open. We also establish results about $K$-theory, showing that all $K_0$-classes come from the inclusion of the canonical Cartan in low dimensional cases, but not in general; in particular, our $K$-theoretic results answer a question of Elliott and Sierakowski about vanishing of $K_0$ groups for uniform Roe algebras of non-amenable groups. Along the way, we extend some results about paradoxicality, proper infiniteness of projections in uniform Roe algebras, and supramenability from groups to general metric spaces. These are ingredients needed for our $K$-theoretic computations, but we also use them to give new characterizations of supramenability for metric spaces., Comment: New version has some (minor) expository changes, and adds results on finite decomposition rank and strong quasi-diagonality

Based on the localization algebras of Yu, and their subsequent analysis by Qiao and Roe, we give a new picture of KK-theory in terms of time-parametrized families of (locally) compact operators that asymptotically commute with appropriate representations., Comment: 16 pages, a second proof was added for Theorem 5.1

In this paper, we introduce a property of topological dynamical systems that we call finite dynamical complexity. For systems with this property, one can in principle compute the $K$-theory of the associated crossed product $C^*$-algebra by splitting it up into simpler pieces and using the methods of controlled $K$-theory. The main part of the paper illustrates this idea by giving a new proof of the Baum-Connes conjecture for actions with finite dynamical complexity. We have tried to keep the paper as self-contained as possible: we hope the main part will be accessible to someone with the equivalent of a first course in operator $K$-theory. In particular, we do not assume prior knowledge of controlled $K$-theory, and use a new and concrete model for the Baum-Connes conjecture with coefficients that requires no bivariant $K$-theory to set up., Comment: Second version has extensive revisions: chiefly, the main argument has been reworked based on a new notion of `finite dynamical complexity'. This is partly to correct an error, and partly as the new version seemed simpler and more natural. A new appendix has been added comparing finite dynamical complexity to other properties. Third version corrects a minor error in Definition 7.4

We introduce the concept of Roe C*-algebra for a locally compact groupoid whose unit space is in general not compact, and that is equipped with an appropriate coarse structure and Haar system. Using Connes' tangent groupoid method, we introduce an analytic index for an elliptic differential operator on a Lie groupoid equipped with additional metric structure, which takes values in the K-theory of the Roe C*-algebra. We apply our theory to derive a Lichnerowicz type vanishing result for foliations on open manifolds.

We introduce dynamic asymptotic dimension, a notion of dimension for actions of discrete groups on locally compact spaces, and more generally for locally compact \'etale groupoids. We study our notion for minimal actions of the integer group, its relation with conditions used by Bartels, L\"uck, and Reich in the context of controlled topology, and its connections with Gromov's theory of asymptotic dimension. We also show that dynamic asymptotic dimension gives bounds on the nuclear dimension of Winter and Zacharias for C*-algebras associated to dynamical systems. Dynamic asymptotic dimension also has implications for K-theory and manifold topology: these will be drawn out in subsequent work.

An exotic crossed product is a way of associating a C*-algebra to each C*-dynamical system that generalizes the well-known universal and reduced crossed products. Exotic crossed products provide natural generalizations of, and tools to study, exotic group C*-algebras as recently considered by Brown-Guentner and others. They also form an essential part of a recent program to reformulate the Baum-Connes conjecture with coefficients so as to mollify the counterexamples caused by failures of exactness. In this paper, we survey some constructions of exotic group algebras and exotic crossed products. Summarising our earlier work, we single out a large class of crossed products --- the correspondence functors --- that have many properties known for the maximal and reduced crossed products: for example, they extend to categories of equivariant correspondences, and have a compatible descent morphism in KK-theory. Combined with known results on K-amenability and the Baum-Connes conjecture, this allows us to compute the K-theory of many exotic group algebras. It also gives new information about the reformulation of the Baum-Connes Conjecture mentioned above. Finally, we present some new results relating exotic crossed products for a group and its closed subgroups, and discuss connections with the reformulated Baum-Connes conjecture.

We construct a locally compact groupoid with the properties in the title. Our example is based closely on constructions used by Higson, Lafforgue, and Skandalis in their work on counterexamples to the Baum-Connes conjecture. It is a bundle of countable groups over the one point compactification of the natural numbers, and is Hausdorff, second countable and \'{e}tale., Comment: Version two has some clarifications, minor fixes, and additional background and references

We study general properties of exotic crossed-product functors and characterise those which extend to functors on equivariant C*-algebra categories based on correspondences. We show that every such functor allows the construction of a descent in KK-theory and we use this to show that all crossed products by correspondence functors of K-amenable groups are KK-equivalent. We also show that for second countable groups the minimal exact Morita compatible crossed-product functor used in the new formulation of the Baum-Connes conjecture by Baum, Guentner and Willett extends to correspondences when restricted to separable G-C*-algebras. It therefore allows a descent in KK-theory for separable systems., Comment: New version has additional material on duality, and minor corrections

We extend the limit operator machinery of Rabinovich, Roch, and Silbermann from $\mathbb{Z}^N$ to (bounded geometry, strongly) discrete metric spaces. We do not assume the presence of any group structure or action on our metric spaces. Using this machinery and recent ideas of Lindner and Seidel, we show that if a metric space X has Yu's property A, then a band-dominated operator on X is Fredholm if and only if all of its limit operators are invertible. We also show that this always fails for metric spaces without property A., Comment: 46 pages

This paper studies higher index theory for a random sequence of bounded degree, finite graphs with diameter tending to infinity. We show that in a natural model for such random sequences the following hold almost surely: the coarse Baum-Connes assembly map is injective; the coarse Baum-Connes assembly map is not surjective; the maximal coarse Baum-Connes assembly map is an isomorphism. These results are closely tied to issues of expansion in graphs: in particular, we also show that such random sequences almost surely do not have geometric property (T), a strong form of expansion. The key geometric ingredients in the proof are due to Mendel and Naor: in our context, their results imply that a random sequence of graphs almost surely admits a weak form of coarse embedding into Hilbert space.

This paper discusses `geometric property (T)'. This is a property of metric spaces introduced in earlier work of the authors for its applications to K-theory. Geometric property (T) is a strong form of `expansion property': in particular for a sequence of finite graphs $(X_n)$, it is strictly stronger than $(X_n)$ being an expander in the sense that the Cheeger constants $h(X_n)$ are bounded below. We show here that geometric property (T) is a coarse invariant, i.e. depends only on the large-scale geometry of a metric space $X$. We also discuss the relationships between geometric property (T) and amenability, property (T), and various coarse geometric notions of a-T-menability. In particular, we show that property (T) for a residually finite group is characterised by geometric property (T) for its finite quotients., Comment: Version two corrects some typos and a mistake in the proof of Lemma 8.8

We reformulate the Baum-Connes conjecture with coefficients by introducing a new crossed product functor for C*-algebras. All confirming examples for the original Baum-Connes conjecture remain confirming examples for the reformulated conjecture, and at present there are no known counterexamples to the reformulated conjecture. Moreover, some of the known expander-based counterexamples to the original Baum-Connes conjecture become confirming examples for our reformulated conjecture., Comment: 53 pages. Some (relatively minor) changes and corrections

We show that a bounded geometry metric space X has property A if and only if all ghost operators on X are compact., Comment: 12 pages

The main results of this paper show that various coarse (`large scale') geometric properties are closely related. In particular, we show that property A implies the operator norm localisation property, and thus that norms of operators associated to a very large class of metric spaces can be effectively estimated. The main tool is a new property called uniform local amenability. This property is easy to negate, which we use to study some `bad' spaces. We also generalise and reprove a theorem of Nowak relating amenability and asymptotic dimension in the quantitative setting.

The aim of this paper is to introduce an approach to the (strong) Novikov conjecture based on continuous families of finite dimensional representations: this is partly inspired by ideas of Lusztig using the Atiyah-Singer families index theorem, and partly by Carlsson's deformation $K$--theory. Using this approach, we give new proofs of the strong Novikov conjecture in several interesting cases, including crystallographic groups and surface groups. The method presented here is relatively accessible compared with other proofs of the Novikov conjecture, and also yields some information about the $K$--theory and cohomology of representation spaces.

Gong, Wang and Yu introduced a maximal, or universal, version of the Roe C*-algebra associated to a metric space. We study the relationship between this maximal Roe algebra and the usual version, in both the uniform and non-uniform cases. The main result is that if a (uniformly discrete, bounded geometry) metric space X coarsely embeds in a Hilbert space, then the canonical map between the maximal and usual (uniform) Roe algebras induces an isomorphism on K-theory. We also give a simple proof that if X has property A, then the maximal and usual (uniform) Roe algebras are the same. These two results are natural coarse-geometric analogues of certain well-known implications of a-T-menability and amenability for group C*-algebras. The techniques used are E-theoretic, building on work of Higson-Kasparov-Trout and Yu., Comment: 26 pages

Roe algebras are C*-algebras built using large-scale (or 'coarse') aspects of a metric space (X,d). In the special case that X=G is a finitely generated group and d is a word metric, the simplest Roe algebra associated to (G,d) is isomorphic to the reduced crossed product C*-algebra l^\infty(G)\rtimes G. Roe algebras are 'coarse invariants', in the sense that if X and Y are coarsely equivalent metric spaces, then their Roe algebras are isomorphic. Motivated in part by the coarse Baum-Connes conjecture, we ask if there is a converse to the above statement: that is, if X and Y are metric spaces with isomorphic Roe algebras, must X and Y be coarsely equivalent? We show that for very large classes of spaces the answer to this question, and some related questions, is 'yes'. This can be thought of as a 'C*-rigidity result': it shows that the Roe algebra construction preserves a large amount of information about the space, and is thus surprisingly 'rigid'. As an example of our results, in the group case we have that if G and H are finitely generated elementary amenable, hyperbolic, or linear, groups such that the crossed products l^\infty(G)\rtimes G and l^\infty(H)\rtimes H are isomorphic, then G and H are quasi-isometric., Comment: 25 pages

In this paper, the second of a series of two, we continue the study of higher index theory for expanders. We prove that if a sequence of graphs has girth tending to infinity, then the maximal coarse Baum-Connes assembly map is an isomorphism for the associated metric space $X$. As discussed in the first paper in this series, this has applications to the Baum-Connes conjecture for `Gromov monster' groups. We also introduce a new property, `geometric property (T)'. For the metric space associated to a sequence of graphs, this property is an obstruction to the maximal coarse assembly map being an isomorphism. This enables us to distinguish between expanders with girth tending to infinity, and, for example, those constructed from property (T) groups., Comment: 39 pages

Withdrawn due to a likely error with the homeomorphism at line (4). Old abstract: In the monograph 'Limit Operators and their Applications in Operator Theory', the authors define the operator spectrum of a band-dominated operator T and prove that T is Fredholm if and only if all of the operators in its operator spectrum are invertible with uniformly bounded inverses. They also ask whether the uniform boundedness condition can in fact be dispensed with. In this note we answer this question affirmatively., Comment: Withdrawn due to a likely error

We provide an expository account of Guoliang Yu's property A. The piece starts from the basic definitions, and goes on to discuss closure properties of the class of property A spaces (and groups) and the relationship of property A to coarse embeddability problems, operator theory, and amenability. It finishes with some examples of non-property A spaces. We also include an annotated bibliography covering much of the related literature.