Frequent hypercyclicity, chaos, and unconditional Schauder decompositions (Q1760409)

This paper investigates the existence of operators satisfying strong forms of hypercyclicity in separable infinite-dimensional Banach spaces with an unconditional Schauder decomposition. \textit{S. I. Ansari} [J. Funct. Anal. 148, No. 2, 384--390 (1997; Zbl 0898.47019)] and \textit{L. Bernal-González} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 127, No. 4, 1003--1010 (1999; Zbl 0911.47020)] proved in the late 1990's that every separable infinite-dimensional Banach space \(X\) supports an operator \(T\) that is hypercyclic, that is, there is \(x \in X\) such that the orbit of \(x\) is dense in \(X\). The reviewer et al. [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 33, No. 2, 196--198 (2001; Zbl 1046.47008)] exhibited a separable Banach space which does not admit a chaotic operator; later on, \textit{S. Shkarin} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 137, No. 1, 123--134 (2009; Zbl 1161.47007)] proved that the same space does not admit frequently hypercyclic operators. The class considered to construct the examples was the class of hereditarily indecomposable Banach spaces of Gowers and Maurey. A hypercyclic operator \(T\) is chaotic if the set of periodic points of \(T\) is dense in \(X\). Frequently hypercyclic operators were introduced and thoroughly studied by \textit{F. Bayart} and the third author [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 358, No. 11, 5083--5117 (2006; Zbl 1115.47005)]. In this paper, the authors prove that every complex separable infinite-dimensional Banach space \(X\) that admits an unconditional Schauder decomposition, then \(X\) supports an operator \(T\) that is frequently hypercyclic and chaotic. This operator is in fact ergodic with respect to a non-degenerate invariant Gaussian measure. The operator constructed in the paper is a nuclear (hence compact) perturbation of a diagonal operator whose diagonal coefficients are complex numbers of modulus \(1\). The construction is done firstly in a separable Hilbert space and then transferred to the Banach space. It is also shown that the situation is drastically different for real Banach spaces: there are real Banach spaces with an unconditional basis which support no chaotic operators. The authors announce that it is possible to extend their results to Fréchet spaces: every complex separable Fréchet space with a continuous norm and an unconditional Schauder decomposition and every complex Fréchet space with an unconditional basis admits a chaotic frequently hypercyclic operator.