Polynomial sequences of bounded operators. (Q1431781)

In the classical spectral theory, a basic role is played by the sequence \(\{T^n\}\) of powers of a given bounded operator on some Banach space. The purpose of this paper is to investigate spectral properties of operators using instead more general sequences of polynomials \(\{p_n(T)\}.\) As the authors show, several known concepts like spectral radius and semidistance can be extended to this more general context, yielding new results with applications especially in the field of Lie algebras. Given a formal power series with complex coefficients \(g=\sum_{n\geq 1}g_nX^n,\) there is a unique sequence of polynomials \(\{p_k\}\) such that the identity \(\sum_{k\geq 0}p_k(W)X^k=\sum_{n\geq 0}{1\over {n!}} W^ng^n(X)\) holds true at the level of formal power series. The sequence \(\{p_k\}\) is called the binomial sequence associated with the formal power series \(g,\) and its terms are called the binomial polynomials associated to \(g.\) This definition introduced by the authors in section 3 of their paper is slightly different from that appearing in [\textit{G.-C. Rota}, Finite operator calculus (1975; Zbl 0328.05007)]. A key ingredient in applying this general concept is a Leibniz type derivation formula (Theorem 3.7). In the next section, the binomial radii, the local binomial radii and semidistances, all defined in terms of binomial sequences, are shown to have similar properties to their classical counterparts. Some of these binomial radii are shown to be subadditive (Theorem 4.4) or invariant under inner automorphisms of Banach algebras (Theorem 4.6). These results are applied in the next section to obtain new nilpotency criteria for elements in Banach algebras in terms of binomial sequences (Theorem 5.3), extending previous results of the same authors from [Lie algebras of bounded operators (2001; Zbl 1084.47500)]. The last section contains applications of binomial spectral theory to Lie algebra theory, including extended versions of Engel's classical theorem. For instance, it is proved that a finite-dimensional complex Lie algebra \(\mathcal G\) of Banach space operators, with the property that for each \(T\in\mathcal G\) there exist a binomial sequence \(\{p_n\}\) and an index \(n_0\) such that \(p_n(T)\) is quasinilpotent for all \(n\geq n_0\), is a solvable Lie algebra (Theorem 6.4). As a consequence of this theorem, a similar criterion for solvability of arbitrary Lie subalgebras of \(C^*\)-algebras of matrix-valued continuous functions on compact spaces is obtained (Corollary 6.6). Along the same line, it is shown that every Lie algebra \(\mathcal G\) of binomially nilpotent endomorphisms of some complex vector space is itself a binomially nilpotent Lie algebra, in the sense that for each element \(b\in\mathcal G\) there exist a binomial sequence \(\{p_n\}\) and an index \(n_0\) such that \(p_n(ad(b))=0\) for all \(n\geq n_0\) (Proposition 6.13). The paper also contains several well chosen examples which illustrate the range of applicability of these results.