Singly generated operator algebras satisfying weakened versions of amenability

Abstract

We construct a singly generated subalgebra of K(H) which is nonamenable, yet is boundedly approximately contractible. The example embeds into a homogeneous von Neumann algebra. We also observe that there are singly generated, biflat subalgebras of finite Type I von Neumann algebras, which are not amenable (and hence are not isomorphic to C*-algebras). Such an example can be used to show that a certain extension property for commutative operator algebras, which is shown in [3] to follow from amenability, does not necessarily imply amenability.