On products of unbounded operators (Q1878579)

One of the main tools used in the first part of the paper under review is the fact that for every positive (in general, neither bounded nor densely defined) operator \(A\) on a complex Hilbert space we have \(\langle Af, g\rangle=\langle Ff,Fg\rangle\) for all \(f,g\) in the domain \({\mathcal D}(A)\) of \(A\), where \(F\) is a linear map from \({\mathcal D}(A)\) into another Hilbert space \({\mathcal K}\) and the range of \(F\) is dense in \({\mathcal K}\). Using this fact, one studies various properties of linear maps \(X:{\mathcal D}(A)\to{\mathcal D}(A)\). E.g., one obtains in Theorem~3.1 sufficient conditions in order to insure that, if \(X_1,\dots,X_n:{\mathcal D}(A)\to{\mathcal D}(A)\) are linear maps and \(AX_j\geq0\) for \(j=1,\dots,n\), then \(AX_1\cdots X_n\geq0\). The joint spectrum introduced by \textit{A. McIntosh} and \textit{A. Pryde} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 36, 421--439 (1987; Zbl 0694.47015)] is subsequently used to point out a certain complete positivity property of systems \((X_1,\dots,X_n)\) as above.