On a factorization of operators as a product of an essentially unitary operator and a strongly irreducible operator (Q2345467)

A bounded linear operator \(T\) on a Hilbert space \(\mathcal H\) is said to be \textit{strongly irreducible} if there does not exist a nontrivial idempotent operator \(P\) such that \(PT=TP.\) The main result of the paper under review is a variant of the polar decomposition theorem, which states that for any bounded linear operator \(T\) and \(\varepsilon > 0\), there exist a partial isometry \(U\), a compact operator \(K\) with norm less than \(\varepsilon\), and a strongly irreducible operator \(S\) such that \[ T = (U+K)S. \] A particular consequence (Theorem 1.2) of this decomposition theorem shows that, for any injective bounded linear operator on \(\mathcal H\) with dense range, there exists a unitary operator \(U\) such that \((U+K)T\) is strongly irreducible for some compact operator \(K\). The proof of the main result relies partly on Weyl-von Neumann theorem.