On closed non-vanishing ideals in CB(X)

Abstract: Let $X$ be a completely regular topological space. We study closed ideals $H$ of $C_B(X)$, the normed algebra of bounded continuous scalar-valued mappings on $X$ equipped with pointwise addition and multiplication and the supremum norm, which are non-vanishing, in the sense that, there is no point of $X$ at which every element of $H$ vanishes. This is done by studying the (unique) locally compact Hausdorff space $Y$ associated to $H$ in such a way that $H$ and $C_0(Y)$ are isometrically isomorphic. We are interested in various connectedness properties of $Y$. In particular, we present necessary and sufficient (algebraic) conditions for $H$ such that $Y$ satisfies (topological) properties such as locally connectedness, total disconnectedness, zero-dimensionality, strong zero-dimensionality, total separatedness or extremal disconnectedness.