Unital invertibility-preserving linear maps into matrix spaces (Q2019081)

In this paper, the author characterises unital invertibility preserving linear maps from a unital Banach algebra \(\mathcal A\) into an \(n\times n\) matrix space \(M_n\). More precisely, let \(\varphi: \mathcal{A}\to M_n\) be a unital linear mapping. Then the author shows that \(\varphi\) preserves invertibility if and only if \(\mathrm{tr}(\varphi(x^k))= \mathrm{tr}(\varphi(x)^k)\) for all \(k\in \mathbb N\) and \(x\in \mathcal{A}\), where \(\mathrm{tr}(a)\) denotes the trace of \(a\) in \(M_n\). This is a generalisation of a result (Theorem 3.5) in [\textit{E. Christensen}, Pac. J. Math. 177, No. 1, 27--32 (1997; Zbl 0868.46038)], where the continuity of the linear map \(\varphi\) was assumed.