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Abstract

We study representations of Banach algebras on reflexive Banach spaces. Algebras which admit such representations which are bounded below seem to be a good generalisation of Arens regular Banach algebras; this class includes dual Banach algebras as defined by Runde, but also all group algebras, and all discrete (weakly cancellative) semigroup algebras. Such algebras also behave in a similar way to C$^*$- and W$^*$-algebras; we show that interpolation space techniques can be used in place of GNS type arguments. We define a notion of injectivity for dual Banach algebras, and show that this is equivalent to Connes-amenability. We conclude by looking at the problem of defining a well-behaved tensor product for dual Banach algebras.