Assume that M is a transitive model of $ZFC+CH$ containing a simplified $(\omega _1,2)$-morass, $P\in M$ is the poset adding $\aleph _3$ generic reals and G is P-generic over M. In M we construct a function between sets of terms in the forcing language, that interpreted in $M[G]$ is an $\mathbb R$-linear order-preserving monomorphism from the finite elements of an ultrapower of the reals, over a non-principal ultrafilter on $\omega $, into the Esterle algebra of formal power series. Therefore it is consistent that $2^{\aleph _0}>\aleph _2$ and, for any infinite compact Hausdorff space X, there exists a discontinuous homomorphism of $C(X)$, the algebra of continuous real-valued functions on X.

It is an open question whether every derivation of a Fréchet GB$^{\ast }$-algebra $A[{\it\tau}]$ is continuous. We give an affirmative answer for the case where $A[{\it\tau}]$ is a smooth Fréchet nuclear GB$^{\ast }$-algebra. Motivated by this result, we give examples of smooth Fréchet nuclear GB$^{\ast }$-algebras which are not pro-C$^{\ast }$-algebras.

A map θ:A→B between algebras A and B is called n-multiplicative if θ(a1a2⋯an)=θ(a1) θ(a2)⋯θ(an) for all elements a1,a2,…,an∈A. If θ is also linear then it is called an n-homomorphism. This notion is an extension of a homomorphism. We obtain some results on automatic continuity of n-homomorphisms between certain topological algebras, as well as Banach algebras. The main results are extensions of Johnson’s theorem to surjective n-homomorphisms on topological algebras, a theorem due to C. E. Rickart in 1950 to dense range n-homomorphisms on topological algebras and two theorems due to E. Park and J. Trout in 2009 to * -preserving n-homomorphisms on lmc * -algebras.

A ℂ-linear map θ (not necessarily bounded) between two Hilbert C*-modules is said to be ‘orthogonality preserving’ if 〈θ(x),θ(y)〉=0 whenever 〈x,y〉=0. We prove that if θ is an orthogonality preserving map from a full Hilbert C0(Ω)-module E into another Hilbert C0(Ω) -module F that satisfies a weaker notion of C0 (Ω) -linearity (called ‘localness’), then θ is bounded and there exists ϕ∈Cb (Ω)+ such that 〈θ(x),θ(y)〉=ϕ⋅〈x,y〉 for all x,y∈E.

We describe explicitly the continuous Hochschild and cyclic cohomology groups of certain tensor products of -algebras which are Fréchet spaces or nuclear DF-spaces. To this end we establish the existence of topological isomorphisms in the Künneth formula for the cohomology of complete nuclear DF-complexes and in the Künneth formula for continuous Hochschild cohomology of nuclear -algebras which are Fréchet spaces or DF-spaces for which all boundary maps of the standard homology complexes have closed ranges.

We give a description of the continuity ideals and the kernels of homomorphisms from the algebras of continuous functions on locally compact spaces into Banach algebras. We also construct families of prime ideals satisfying a certain intriguing property in the algebras of continuous functions.

The paper [3] proved a necessary algebraic condition for a Banach algebra A with finite-dimensional radical R to have a unique complete (algebra) norm, and conjectured that this condition is also sufficient. We extend the above theorem. The conjecture is confirmed in the case where A is separable and A/R is commutative, but is shown to fail in general. Similar questions for derivations are discussed.

Many Banach algebras A have the property that, although there are discontinuous homomorphisms from A into other Banach algebras, every homomorphism from A into another Banach algebra is automatically continuous on a dense subspace—preferably, a subalgebra—of A. Examples of such algebras are C*-algebras and the group algebras L1(G), where G is a locally compact, abelian group. In this paper, we prove analogous results for , where E is a Banach space, and . An important rôle is played by the second Hochschild cohomology group of and , respectively, with coefficients in the one-dimensional annihilator module. It vanishes in the first case and has linear dimension one in the second one.