A notion of a quantum automorphism group of a finite quantum group, generalising that of a classical automorphism group of a finite group, is proposed and a corresponding existence result proved.
A general form of contractive idempotent functionals on coamenable locally compact quantum groups is obtained, generalising the result of Greenleaf on contractive measures on locally compact groups. The image of a convolution operator associated to a
contractive idempotent is shown to be a ternary ring of operators. As a consequence a one-to-one correspondence between contractive idempotents and a certain class of ternary rings of operators is established.
It is shown that if T is a ternary ring of operators (TRO), X is a nondegenerate sub-TRO of T and there exists a contractive idempotent surjective map P:T-->X, then P has a unique, explicitly described extension to a conditional expectation between t
he associated linking algebras. A version of the result for W*-TROs is also presented and some applications mentioned.
