Ranks of soft operators in nowhere scattered C*-algebras

Abstract

We show that for C*-algebras with the Global Glimm Property, the rank of every operator can be realized as the rank of a soft operator, that is, an element whose hereditary sub-C*-algebra has no nonzero, unital quotients. This implies that the radius of comparison of such a C*-algebra is determined by the soft part of its Cuntz semigroup. Under a mild additional assumption, we show that every Cuntz class dominates a (unique) largest soft Cuntz class. This defines a retract from the Cuntz semigroup onto its soft part, and it follows that the covering dimensions of these semigroups differ by at most $1$.