A generalized Powers averaging property for commutative crossed products

Abstract: We prove a generalized version of Powers' averaging property that characterizes simplicity of reduced crossed products $C(X) \rtimes_\lambda G$, where $G$ is a countable discrete group, and $X$ is a compact Hausdorff space which $G$ acts on minimally by homeomorphisms. As a consequence, we generalize results of Hartman and Kalantar on unique stationarity to the state space of $C(X) \rtimes_\lambda G$ and to Kawabe's generalized space of amenable subgroups $\operatorname{Sub}a(X,G)$. This further lets us generalize a result of the first named author and Kalantar on simplicity of intermediate C*-algebras. We prove that if $C(Y) \subseteq C(X)$ is an inclusion of unital commutative $G$-C*-algebras with $X$ minimal and $C(Y) \rtimes\lambda G$ simple, then any intermediate C*-algebra $A$ satisfying $C(Y) \rtimes_\lambda G \subseteq A \subseteq C(X) \rtimes_\lambda G$ is simple.