An approach to Gelfand theory for arbitrary Banach algebras (Q1043700)

Let \(X\) be a Banach space, \(B(X)\) the algebra of all bounded linear operators on \(X\) and \(A\) a Banach algebra. A homomorphism \(\pi: A\to B(X)\) is an irreducible representation of \(A\) on \(X\) if \(\{\theta _A\}\) (\(\theta _A\) denotes the zero element of \(A\)) and \(X\) are the only invariant subspaces for \(\pi\). Two irreducible representations \(\pi _1:A\to B(X_1)\) and \(\pi _2:A\to B(X_2)\) of \(A\) are equivalent if there is an isomorphism \(T:X_1\to X_2\) such that \(T\pi _1(a)=\pi _2(a)T\) for all \(a\in A\). Let \(\widehat{A}\) denote the set of all classes of irreducible representations of \(A\) endowed with the topology induced by the inverse image of the Jacobson topology on Prim(\(A\)) (the set of all primitive ideals of \(A\)) under the map \(\theta:\widehat{A}\to \text{Prim (}A\)) defined by \(\theta (\pi)=\ker (\pi)\). A (topological) Gelfand theory for \(A\) is a pair (\(\mathcal{G}, \mathcal{U}\)) which satisfies the following axioms: (G1) \(\mathcal{U}\) is a \(C^*\)-algebra and \(\mathcal{G}:A\to \mathcal{U}\) is a homomorphism which induces a homeomorphic bijection \(\widehat{\mathcal{U}}\to \widehat{A}\) by \(\pi\mapsto \pi\circ\mathcal{G}\) and (G2) \(\mathcal{G}(A)\not\subseteq L\) for every maximal modular left ideal \(L\) in \(\mathcal{U}\). It is shown that this definition of Gelfand theory is equivalent to the usual definition of Gelfand theory in the commutative case and many properties of the Gelfand theory of commutative Banach algebras remain true for the Gelfand theory of arbitrary Banach algebras. Moreover, it is shown that unital homogeneous Banach algebras and postliminal \(C^*\)-algebras have unique Gelfand theories.