On similarity of quasinilpotent operators (Q859629): Difference between revisions

The following problem falls into the family of questions on automatic continuity: Suppose that \(T\) is a bounded linear operator acting on a Banach space \(X\) and \(\| \cdot \| _{1}\) is another complete norm on \(X\), with respect to which \(T\) is also bounded. Does it follow that \(\| \cdot \| _{1}\) is equivalent to the initial norm? If the answer is affirmative, we say that \(T\) determines the topology of \(X\). In 2000, Armando R.\thinspace Villena posed the following question. Does the Volterra operator \(V\) defined on the space \(C([0,1])\) by \(Vf(x)=\int_0^xf\) determine the topology of \(C([0,1])\)? In the paper under review, the author answers this question in the negative. This is an application of the following characterization. Let \(T\) be a bounded linear operator on a complex Banach space \(X\) with algebraic dimension \(2^{\aleph_0}\). Then there exists a linear operator (not necessarily bounded) \(G : X \to C([0,1])\) such that \(GT=VG\) if and only if \(T\) is injective, quasinilpotent, and \(\overline{T^m(X)}=\overline{T^{m+1}(X)}\) for some natural number \(m\). Moreover, the author provides a sufficient condition for an injective bounded linear operator on a Banach space to determine its topology. From this condition it follows, for instance, that the Volterra operator, when acting on the Hardy space \(H^p\) of the unit disk, determines the norm topology of \(H^p\) for each \(p\in [1,\infty]\).