A Roe algebra of a uniformly discrete metric space
of bounded geometry is a completion of its algebra
of locally compact finite-propagation operators.
Use the Hilbert space
. Local compactness requires
and
to be compact for every
. Finite propagation requires
a bound
with
whenever
. The matrix entries are
compact operators, without a uniform bound on
their ranks.
The reduced Roe algebra
is the operator-norm closure of this algebra. The
maximal Roe algebra
instead uses the universal
-norm. There is a canonical quotient from the maximal completion
to the reduced one. These are locally compact Roe algebras, distinct from the uniform Roe algebra built using entries in
on
. The different completions give different assembly
maps in coarse geometry.