Isometries of certain reflexive operator algebras (Q1174966)

Let \(L\) be a family of subspaces of a Hilbert space, and let \(A\) be the algebra of all operators leaving the elements of \(L\) invariant. The authors study the isometries of the Banach space \(A\) onto itself. Particular cases of this problem were studied before. For instance, the isometries of \(L^ \infty\) are well-known to come from automorphisms of the underlying measure space and multiplication by unimodular functions. More generally, the problem was solved by R. Kadison when \(A\) is a von Neumann algebra (equivalently, when \(L\) contains all the orthogonal complements of its elements). The authors solved earlier the problem in case \(L\) is a nest. In all of these situations, the isometries are composed of relatively simple pieces. The purpose of this article is to prove an analogous result in case \(L\) is a completely distributive lattice. This covers their earlier work on nests, and part of Kadison's result. The results is that any isometry splits into two pieces, one implemented by a unitary and the other by a unitary and a conjugation of the underlying Hilbert space.