Nonexistence in general of a definitizing ideal of the desired codimension (Q1417884)

Let \(\mathcal A\) be a \(*\)-algebra (an associative algebra over \(\mathbb C\) endowed with an involutive antilinear antiautomorphism) and \(E\) be its linear subspace. A linear form \(L\) on \(\mathcal A\) is called positive (negative, nonnegative) on \(E\) if \(L(a^*a)>0\) (\(L(a^*a)<0\), \(L(a^*a)\geq0\), respectively) for all \(a\in E\setminus\{0\}\). Let \(k_L=\max\dim E\), where \(E\) runs through all \(L\)-negative subspaces. For any \(k,q\in\mathbb N\), the authors construct \(\mathcal A\) and \(L\) such that \(k_L=k\) and \(L\) cannot be nonnegative on any left ideal of codimension less than \(q\). The algebra \(\mathcal A\) is the semigroup algebra over the free (nonabelian) semigroup with identity and \(2q\) generators. The main ingredient of the construction is a square block matrix \(A=(A_{ij})_{i,j=1}^q\), where \(A_{ij}\) are complex \(q\)-matrices, that has exactly \(k\) negative eigenvalues and possesses the following property: if for \((c_1,\dots,c_q)=c\in{\mathbb C}^q\) the matrix \(\sum_{i,j=1}^qc_i\overline{c_j}A_{ij}\) is nonnegative, then \(c=0\). Let \(G=\{g_1,\dots,g_q\}\) and \(D=\{d_1,\dots,d_q\}\) be disjoint sets such that \(G\cup D\) is the set of generators for the semigroup. The functional \(L\) corresponds to the function \(\varphi\) on the set \(DGGD\) defined by \(\varphi(d_jg_lg_kd_i)=A_{ij}(k,l)\) (the \((k,l)\) entry of \(A_{ij}\)).