The maximal ideals of a nest algebra (Q1331655)

The author describes the lattice \({\mathcal L}_ m\) of (closed, two-sided) ideals generated by the maximal ideals of a continuous nest algebra \(N\). To each ideal in \({\mathcal L}_ m\) he associates, in a natural way, a family of open subsets of the unit interval. He shows that \({\mathcal L}_ m\) consists of all ideals containing a certain minimum ideal, which is described as the largest ideal which does not contain non-trivial intervals of \(N\). He gives a formula for the quotient norms associated with ideals in \({\mathcal L}_ m\) and, as an application, he shows that the sum of two ideals in \({\mathcal L}_ m\) is closed. He also proves a factorization result for ideals in \({\mathcal L}_ m\), and derives some algebraic properties of \({\mathcal L}_ m\). Finally, he observes that it is not known whether the results of the paper can be extended to the whole family of nest algebras.