Unbounded commutants and intertwining spaces of unbounded symmetric operators and *-representations (Q578559)

In the study of linear operators on Hilbert space, commutation properties and the related notion of intertwining have received considerable attention. In the paper under review, the author presents several types of commutants for an unbounded symmetric operator and, for two specific examples, characterizes these. For instance, given a closed linear operator A on the Hilbert space H, let \(\tau_ n(A)\) denote the set of all operators C:\({\mathcal D}(A^{n- 1})\to H\) such that C\({\mathcal D}(A^ n)\subseteq {\mathcal D}(A)\), \(CAx=ACx\) for all x in \({\mathcal D}(A^ n)\), and such that there is a constant \(r>0\) satisfying \(\| Cx\| \leq r\| x\|\) for all x in \({\mathcal D}(A^{n-1})\). Intertwining spaces \(\tau_ n(A,B)\) are defined as well as are analogous spaces \(\tau_{n,m}(A)\) and \(\tau_{n,m}(A,B)\) of sesquilinear forms. In case \(n=1\), the space \(\tau_ 1(A)\) is just the commutant of A while if A is symmetric then the space \(\tau_ 1(A,A^*)\), called the weak commutant of A, consists of those operators C on H for which \(CA=A^*C.\) Following a thorough discussion of the properties of these spaces, complete characterizations are given for \(\tau_ n(A)\) and \(\tau_{n,m}(A)\) in the cases where H is the Hardy space \(H^ 2\) on the unit circle and A is a restriction (with finite deficiency indices) of \(i(S+I)(I-S)^{-1}\) (S is the unilateral shift) and where \(H=L^ 2(M)\) for a bounded measurable subset M of the real line and A is a restriction of \(X^{-1}\) (X is the operator of multiplication by x on \(L^ 2(M))\). In the former case, the descriptions are given in terms of Toeplitz operators while singular integral operators arise in the latter case. The problem of finding solutions to the operator equation \((I-Q)(DW-DZ)(I- P)=0\) where W and Z are given and P and Q are projections plays an important part in the analysis. Finally, the author defines (unbounded) commutants and intertwining spaces for \({}^*\)-representations of \({}^*\)-algebras and discusses some properties of these.