Topological properties of spaces of ideals of the minimal tensor product

Abstract

One shows that for two C^*-algebras A_1 and A_2 any continuous function on Prim(A_1)\times Prim(A_2) can be continuously extended to Prim(A_1\otimes A_2) provided it takes its values in a T_1 topological space. This generalizes a 1977 result of L.G. Brown. A new proof is given for a result of R.J. Archbold about the space of minimal primal ideals of A_1\otimes A_2. To obtain these two results one makes use of the topological properties of the space of prime ideals of the minimal tensor product.