Closed ideals of the continuous functions on the locally compact space $X$ vanishing at infinity, $C_0(X)$, with Stone-Weierstrass theorem

c-star-algebrasfunctional-analysisgeneral-topology

I am reading the book "Operator Algebras and Quantum Statistical Mechanics" by O. Bratteli and D. W. Robinson, and Example 2.1.9 says the following:

Let $\mathfrak{A}=C_0(X)$, the commutative $C^*$-algebra(…). If $F$ is a closed subset of $X$, and $\mathfrak{B}$ consists of the elements in $\mathfrak{A}$ which are zero on $F$ then $\mathfrak{B}$ is a closed two-sided ideal of $\mathfrak{A}$(…). Using the Stone-Weierstrass theorem one can show that each closed, two-sided ideal in $\mathfrak{A}$ has this form.

Here $X$ is a locally compact Hausdorff space.

I found a proof which shows this fact for compact $X$ using Stone-Weierstrass theorem (Ideal in $C(X)$), and I tried to show the statement above based on this argument. Unfortunately, in the link we need to use that $X/F$ is compact when $X$ is compact and $F$ is closed, which is not true for locally compact space: i.e. $X/F$ could be not locally compact when $X$ is locally compact and $F$ is closed(see Quotient of a locally compact space). This makes us hard to use the Stone-Weierstrass theoem, since we do not know the ${}^*$-subalgebra of $C_0(X/F)$ which separates points and vanishes nowhere is dense(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone%E2%80%93Weierstrass_theorem for definitions).

Thus, what should I do? Am I missing something, or is Stone-Weierstrass theorem also holds for the quotiented locally compact space? Or should I take a different route?

Best Answer

The best way to understand $C_0(X)$ for locally compact Hausdorff $X$ is to think about the 1-point compactification $X^*=X\cup\{\infty\}$. Note that $C_0(X)$ can be identified with the subset of $C(X^*)$ consisting of functions $f$ such that $f(\infty)=0$, which is a closed ideal in $C(X^*)$. So a closed ideal $I\subseteq C_0(X)$ is just a closed ideal in $C(X^*)$ which is contained in the ideal of functions that are $0$ at $\infty$. Such an ideal must consist of all functions that vanish on some closed subset $F\subseteq X^*$, which must contain $\infty$. Restricting the functions to $X$, this means $I$ is just the functions in $C_0(X)$ that vanish on the closed subset $F\setminus\{\infty\}\subset X$.