A solution of the maximality problem for one-parameter dynamical systems (Q1744561)

It is a classical result by Wermer that the subalgebra of \(C(\mathbb{T})\), the continuous functions on the torus, consisting of all those elements that allow an analytic extension to the open unit disk, is a maximal norm-closed subalgebra of \(C(\mathbb{T})\). The existence of a maximal subalgebra was generalized by various authors to other algebras \(A\) than \(C(\mathbb{T})\) equipped with a continuous action by the group of real numbers \(\mathbb{R}\), where the maximal subalgebra is characterized by those elements \(x\) of \(A\) whose Arveson spectrum \(sp_\alpha(x)\) lies within a certain prescribed subset of \(\hat{ \mathbb{R}}\). The definition of the Arveson spectrum and similar spectra and sets used in this paper is somewhat technical and starts by integrating over the orbit of an element of the algebra multiplied by an element \(f \in L^1(\mathbb{R})\), and asks for some orthogonality conditions with respect to such \(f\), subsets of \(\mathbb{R}\) and of the dual space \(\hat{ \mathbb{R}}\). The author generalizes many of the above mentioned results by considering the situtation where the algebra \(A\) is a \(C^*\)-algebra and topologically also a dual pair of Banach spaces \((A,F)\) equipped with a continuous action \(\alpha\) by \(\mathbb{R}\). This includes known results where \(A\) is a \(C^*\)-algebra (\(F= A^*\)) or a von Neumann algebra (\(F=A_*\)), or, not so much considered before, the multiplier algebra \(M(B)\) of a \(C^*\)-algebra \(B\) with the strict topology (\(F=B^*\)). The main result of the paper says the following. For a closed subset \(K\) of \(\hat{ \mathbb{R}}\), let \(A^\alpha(K)= \{a \in A\mid sp_\alpha(a) \subseteq K\}\), and similarly so but more technically for other subsets of \(\hat{ \mathbb{R}}\). Then the subalgebra \(A^\alpha([0,\infty))\) of \(A\) is a maximal \(F\)-closed subalgebra of \(A\) if and only if a certain technical spectral condition is satisfied. A new consequence of this is that \(H^\infty(\mathbb{R}) \cap C_b(\mathbb{R})\) is a maximal strictly closed subalgebra of the multiplier algebra \(C_b(\mathbb{R})\).