Ideals with bounded approximate identities in Fourier algebras

We make use of the operator space structure of the Fourier algebra A(G) of an amenable locally compact group to prove that if H is any closed subgroup of G, then the ideal I(H) consisting of all functions in A(G) vanishing on H has a bounded approximate identity. This result allows us to completely characterize the ideals of A(G) with bounded approximate identities. We also show that for several classes of locally compact groups, including all nilpotent groups, I(H) has an approximate identity with norm bounded by 2, the best possible norm bound.