Ideals of étale groupoid algebras and Exel’s Effros–Hahn conjecture

Abstract

We extend to arbitrary commutative base rings a recent result of Demeneghi that every ideal of an ample groupoid algebra over a field is an intersection of kernels of induced representations from isotropy groups, with a much shorter proof, by using the author’s Disintegration Theorem for groupoid representations. We also prove that every primitive ideal is the kernel of an induced representation from an isotropy group; however, we are unable to show, in general, that it is the kernel of an irreducible induced representation. If each isotropy group is finite (e.g., if the groupoid is principal) and if the base ring is Artinian (e.g., a field), then we can show that every primitive ideal is the kernel of an irreducible representation induced from isotropy.