Regular dilation on graph products of \(\mathbb{N}\) (Q529385)

The celebrated Sz.-Nagy's dilation theorem plays a central role in the dilation theory of a single contraction. Since the multivariate version of Sz.-Nagy's theorem does not hold in general, researchers have investigated extra conditions on tuples of operators under which an isometric dilation exists. The paper under review aims to unify and generalize two seemingly opposition directions. In one direction, \textit{S. Brehmer} [Acta Sci. Math. 22, 106--111 (1961; Zbl 0097.31701)] obtained necessary and sufficient conditions on commuting tuples of contractions that admit a regular isometric dilation. In another direction, the Frazho-Popescu-Bunce dilation deals with non-commutative row contractions [\textit{A. E. Frazho}, J. Funct. Anal. 48, 1--11 (1982; Zbl 0487.47011); \textit{J. W. Bunce}, J. Funct. Anal. 57, 21--30 (1984; Zbl 0558.47004); \textit{G. Popescu}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 316, No. 2, 523--536 (1989; Zbl 0691.47008)]. While Brehmer's result is related to representations of the commutative semigroup \(\mathbb{N}^n\), the Frazho-Bunce-Popescu dilation is related to representations of the non-commutative free semigroup \(\mathbb{F}^{+}_{n}\). The paper under review defines and studies regular and \(*\)-regular representations on a larger class of semigroups, the graph products of \(\mathbb{N}\). The main result not only provides a unified approach but also generalizes Brehmer's and Frazho-Bunce-Popescu's results. In addition, it is established that a representation of a graph product has an isometric Nica-covariant dilation if and only if it is \(*\)-regular. The connection with \textit{G. Popescu}'s work [J. Funct. Anal. 161, No. 1, 27--61 (1999; Zbl 0933.46070)] is also discussed.