Prime ideals in noncommutative Iwasawa algebras

Abstract

We study the prime ideal structure of the Iwasawa algebra $\Lambda_G$ of an almost simple compact $p$-adic Lie group $G$. When the Lie algebra of $G$ contains a copy of the two-dimensional non-abelian Lie algebra, we show that the prime ideal structure of $\Lambda_G$ is somewhat restricted. We also provide a potential example of a prime c-ideal of $\Lambda_G$ in the case when the Lie algebra of $G$ is ${\frak s}{\frak l}_2(\mathbb{Q}p)$.