The Similarity Degree of Some C*-algebras

Abstract

We define the class of weakly approximately divisible unital C*-algebras and show that this class is closed under direct sums, direct limits, any tensor product with any C*-algebra, and quotients. A nuclear C*-algebra is weakly approximately divisible if and only if it has no finite-dimensional representations. We also show that Pisier's similarity degree of a weakly approximately divisible C*-algebra is at most 5.