The ideal intersection property for essential groupoid C*-algebras

Abstract: We characterise, in several complementary ways, \'etale groupoids with locally compact Hausdorff space of units whose essential groupoid C*-algebra has the ideal intersection property, assuming that the groupoid is topologically transitive and either Hausdorff or $\sigma$-compact. This leads directly to a characterisation of the simplicity of this C*-algebra which, for Hausdorff groupoids, agrees with the reduced groupoid C*-algebra. Specifically, we prove for topologically transitive groupoids that the ideal intersection property is equivalent to the absence of essentially confined amenable sections of isotropy groups. For topologically transitive groupoids with compact space of units we moreover show that this is equivalent to the uniqueness of equivariant pseudo-expectations. A key technical idea underlying our results is a new notion of groupoid action on C*-algebras including the essential groupoid C*-algebra itself. For minimal groupoids, we further obtain a relative version of Powers averaging property. Examples arise from suitable group representations into simple groupoid \Cstar-algebras. This is illustrated by the example of the quasi-regular representation of Thompson's group $\mathrm{T}$ with respect to Thompson's group $\mathrm{F}$, which satisfies the relative Powers averaging property in the Cuntz algebra $\mathcal{O}_2$.