\(K\)-theory and perturbations of absolutely continuous spectra (Q1710471)

The paper is devoted to the $K_{0}$-group of the commutant modulo a normed ideal of an $n$-tuple of commuting Hermitian operators. Let $T=( T_{1},\dots ,T_{n}) $ be an $n$-tuple of bounded Hermitian operators on a separable infinite-dimensional Hilbert space $H$, $\mathcal{J}$ a normed operator ideal of compact operators on $H$, and let $\mathcal{E} ( T,\mathcal{J}) =\{ X\in \mathcal{B}( H) :[ X,T] \subseteq \mathcal{J}\} $ be the $\ast $-algebra equipped with the norm $\vert \vert \vert X\vert \vert \vert =\Vert X\Vert +\max \Vert [ X,T] \Vert _{\mathcal{J}}$, $X\in \mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $. If $T-T^{\prime }\subseteq \mathcal{J}$ for another $n$-tuple, then $\mathcal{ E}( T,\mathcal{J}) =\mathcal{E}( T^{\prime },\mathcal{J} ) $ and the related norms are equivalent. Notice that for the matrix spaces over $\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $, we have the canonical algebraic identifications $M_{n}( \mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) ) =\mathcal{E}( T\otimes I_{n},M_{n}( \mathcal{J}) ) $, $n\in \mathbb{N}$. The set of all idempotents in $\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $ is denoted by $\mathcal{PE} ( T,\mathcal{J}) $, whereas $\mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T, \mathcal{J}) $ indicates to the set of all orthogonal projections from $\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $. If $P\in \mathcal{PE}( T, \mathcal{J}) $ and $P_{PH}$ is the orthogonal projection onto $PH$, then $P_{PH}\in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $, for $PP^{\ast }\in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $ and $ P_{PH}=f( PP^{\ast }) \in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T, \mathcal{J}) $ due to the smooth functional calculus in $\mathcal{E} ( T,\mathcal{J}) $. Put $P\sim Q$ in $\mathcal{PE}( T, \mathcal{J}) $ if $P=XY$ and $Q=YX$ for some $X,Y\in \mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $. Then $P\sim P_{PH}$, and there is a partial isometry $V\in \mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $ such that $P=VV^{\ast }$ and $ Q=V^{\ast }V$ whenever $P,Q\in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J} ) $ and $P\sim Q$. Note also that $P\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J} ) P|PH=\mathcal{E}( PT|PH,\mathcal{J}) $ whenever $P\in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) $. Thus using orthogonal projections and partial isometries, one can define $K_{0}( \mathcal{E}( T,\mathcal{J}) ) $. The Lebesgue absolutely continuous subspace of $H$ with respect to the tuple $T$ is denoted by $ H_{ac}( T) $ and the multiplicity function of $T|H_{ac}( T) $ is denoted by $\mathrm{mac}( T) $. Thus $\mathrm{mac}( T) $ is a Lebesgue almost everywhere defined measurable function on $\mathbb{R} ^{n}$ taking values in $\{ 0,1,2,\dots ,\infty \} $, and we put $ \omega ( T) =\mathrm{mac}( T) ^{-1}( \infty ) $, defined up to null sets. For $n=1$, we define the additive group $\mathcal{F}( T) $ of equivalence classes (up to a.e.) measurable functions $f:\mathbb{R} \backslash \omega ( T) \rightarrow \mathbb{Z}$ so that $ \vert f\vert \leq C( \mathrm{mac}( T) |\mathbb{R} \backslash \omega ( T) ) $ for some constant $C=C_{f}$. The first central result of the paper asserts that, in the case of $n=1$, there is a unique homomorphism $\mathrm{fmac}( T) :K_{0}( \mathcal{E}( T, \mathcal{C}_{1}) ) \rightarrow \mathcal{F}( T) $ so that, if $P\in \mathcal{P}_{h}\mathcal{E}( T\otimes I_{n},\mathcal{C} _{1}) $, then $\mathrm{fmac}( T) ( [ P] _{0}) =\mathrm{mac}( P( T\otimes I_{n}) |PH^{n}) $, where $\mathcal{C} _{p}$ denotes the Schatten-von Neumann $p$-classes, $1\leq p<\infty $. Actually, $\mathrm{fmac}( T) $ is surjective, and it is an isomorphism whenever $\sigma ( T) =\sigma _{e}( T) $. Finally, the result is extended to the case of $n\geq 3$ by defining the homomorphism $\mathrm{fmac}( T) $.