On generators of abelian Kadison-Singer algebras in matrix algebras (Q2442227)

Let \(\mathcal H\) be a Hilbert space of dimension greater than two and let \(\mathcal B(\mathcal H)\) be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on \(\mathcal H\). A subalgebra \(\mathfrak A\) of \(\mathcal B(\mathcal H)\) is called a Kadison-Singer algebra (or KS-algebra) if \(\mathfrak A\) is reflexive and maximal with respect to the diagonal subalgebra \(\mathfrak A\cap\mathfrak A^*\) of \(\mathfrak A\), in the sense that if there is another reflexive subalgebra \(\mathfrak B\) of \(\mathcal B(\mathcal H)\) such that \(\mathfrak A\subset \mathfrak B\) and \(\mathfrak B\cap\mathfrak B^*=\mathfrak A\cap\mathfrak A^*\), then \(\mathfrak A=\mathfrak B\). The authors prove that an abelian Kadison-Singer algebra acting on \(\mathcal H\) cannot contain any non-trivial idempotent. Based on this, it is shown that an abelian KS-algebra in a matrix algebra \(\mathcal M_n(\mathbb C)\) (\(n\geq 3\)) cannot be generated by a singled element. As a corollary, it is also proved that the lattice of an abelian KS-algebra cannot be completely distributive.