Prime ideals in the C^*-algebra of a nilpotent group

Abstract

We say that a locally compact groupG hasT ₁ primitive ideal space if the groupC ^*-algebra,C ^*(G), has the property that every primitive ideal (i.e. kernel of an irreducible representation) is closed in the hull-kernel topology on the space of primitive ideals ofC ^*(G), denoted by PrimG. This means of course that every primitive ideal inC ^*(G) is maximal. Long agoDixmier proved that every connected nilpotent Lie group hasT ₁ primitive ideal space. More recentlyPoguntke showed that discrete nilpotent groups haveT ₁ primitive ideal space and a few month agoCarey andMoran proved the same property for second countable locally compact groups having a compactly generated open normal subgroup. In this note we combine the methods used in [3] with some ideas in [9] and show that for nilpotent locally compact groupsG, having a compactly generated open normal subgroup, closed prime ideals inC ^*(G) are always maximal which implies of course that PrimG isT ₁.