We describe the representation theory of $C^*$-crossed-products of a unital $C^*$-algebra A by the cyclic group of order~2. We prove that there are two main types of irreducible representations for the crossed-product: those whose restriction to A is irreducible and those who are the sum of two unitarily unequivalent representations of~A. We characterize each class in term of the restriction of the representations to the fixed point $C^*$-subalgebra of~A. We apply our results to compute the K-theory of several crossed-products of the free group on two generators.

This paper is concerned with the structure of inner $E_0$-semigroups. We show that any inner $E_0$-semigroup acting on an infinite factor $M$ is completely determined by a continuous tensor product system of Hilbert spaces in $M$ and that the product system associated with an inner $E_0$-semigroup is a complete cocycle conjugacy invariant.

A basic problem in dynamics is to identify systems with positive entropy, i.e., systems which are ``chaotic.'' While there is a vast collection of results addressing this issue in topological dynamics, the phenomenon of positive entropy remains by and large a mystery within the broader noncommutative domain of $C^*$-algebraic dynamics. To shed some light on the noncommutative situation we propose a geometric perspective inspired by work of Glasner and Weiss on topological entropy. This is a written version of the author's talk at the Winter 2002 Meeting of the Canadian Mathematical Society in Ottawa, Ontario.

Let $G_0$ and $G_1$ be countable abelian groups. Let $\gamma_i$ be an automorphism of $G_i$ of order two. Then there exists a unital Kirchberg algebra $A$ satisfying the Universal Coefficient Theorem and with $[1_A] = 0$ in $K_0 (A)$, and an automorphism $\alpha \in \Aut(A)$ of order two, such that $K_0 (A) \cong G_0$, such that $K_1 (A) \cong G_1$, and such that $\alpha_* \colon K_i (A) \to K_i (A)$ is $\gamma_i$. As a consequence, we prove that every $\mathbb{Z}_2$-graded countable module over the representation ring $R (\mathbb{Z}_2)$ of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ is isomorphic to the equivariant $K$-theory $K^{\mathbb{Z}_2} (A)$ for some action of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ on a unital Kirchberg algebra~$A$. Along the way, we prove that every not necessarily finitely generated $\mathbb{Z} [\mathbb{Z}_2]$-module which is free as a $\mathbb{Z}$-module has a direct sum decomposition with only three kinds of summands, namely $\mathbb{Z} [\mathbb{Z}_2]$ itself and $\mathbb{Z}$ on which the nontrivial element of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ acts either trivially or by multiplication by $-1$.

We consider a class $(A, S, \alpha)$ of dynamical systems, where $S$ is an Ore semigroup and $\alpha$ is an action such that each $\alpha_s$ is injective and extendible ({\it i.e.} it extends to a non-unital endomorphism of the multiplier algebra), and has range an ideal of $A$. We show that there is a partial action on the fixed-point algebra under the canonical coaction of the enveloping group $G$ of $S$ constructed in \cite[Proposition~6.1]{LR2}. It turns out that the full crossed product by this coaction is isomorphic to $A\rtimes_\alpha S$. If the coaction is moreover normal, then the isomorphism can be extended to include the reduced crossed product. We look then at invariant ideals and finally, at examples of systems where our results apply.