Mackey's obstruction map for discrete graded algebras

Abstract: G.W. Mackey's celebrated obstruction theory for projective representations of locally compact groups was remarkably generalized by J. M. G. Fell and R. S. Doran to the wide area of saturated Banach *-algebraic bundles. Analogous obstruction is suggested here for discrete group graded algebras which are not necessarily saturated, i.e. strongly graded in the discrete context. The obstruction is a map assigning a certain second cohomology class to every equivariance class of absolutely simple graded modules. The set of equivariance classes of such modules is equipped with an appropriate multiplication, namely a graded product, such that the obstruction map is a homomorphism of abelian monoids. Graded products, essentially arising as pull-backs of bundles, admit many nice properties, including a way to twist graded algebras and their graded modules. The obstruction class turns out to determine the fine part that appears in the Bahturin-Zaicev-Sehgal decomposition, i.e. the graded Artin-Wedderburn theorem for graded simple algebras which are graded Artinian, in case where the base algebras (i.e. the unit fiber algebras) are finite-dimensional over algebraically closed fields.