Unbounded quasinormal operators revisited (Q2450850)

A (bounded) linear operator \(T\) on a Hilbert space is quasinormal if it commutes with \(T^* T\). Every normal operator is quasinormal, and the a typical significant example of a quasinormal operator that is not normal is a unilateral shift. The paper under review gives a complete and clear short survey on quasinormal operators, aiming at unbounded operators. The main focus is on the identity \(T^n T^n = (T^* T )^n\) for every positive integer \(n\), which is readily verified by induction to be satisfied whenever \(T\) is quasinormal, and in fact is equivalent to quasinormality. This is extended in the paper under review to unbounded (closed and densely defined) quasinormal operators, and is further extended (still for the unbounded case) by verifying the equivalence to quasinormality even if the above identity holds just for \(n = 2, 3\). However, it is also shown that \(T^2 T^2 = (T^* T )^2\) is not enough to ensure quasinormality.