Operators commuting with the Volterra operator are not weakly supercyclic (Q601718)

A bounded linear operator \(T\) on a separable Banach space \(X\) over \(\mathbb{K}=\mathbb{R}\) or \(\mathbb{C}\) is said to be (weakly) supercyclic if there exists a vector \(x\in X\) such that the projective orbit \(\{ \lambda T^n x \mid \lambda\in\mathbb{K}, \;n\geq 0\}\) is (weakly) dense in \(X\). The main result of this paper is that, if \(V\) denotes the Volterra operator acting on one of the spaces \(L^p(0,1)\), \(1\leq p<+\infty\), then no operator \(T\) on \(L^p(0,1)\) commuting with \(V\) is weakly supercyclic. This answers a question of \textit{F. León-Saavedra} and \textit{A. Piqueras-Lerena} [Pac. J. Math. 211, No.~1, 157--162 (2003; Zbl 1069.47008)]. The result is obtained by exhibiting an algebraic condition under which an operator cannot be weakly supercyclic.