Toral and spherical Aluthge transforms of 2-variable weighted shifts (Q344332)

For $i=1,2$, let $T_i=U_i|T_i|$ be the polar decomposition of $T_i$. Then, for a 2-variable weighted shift $W_{(\alpha,\beta)}=(T_1,T_2)$, the authors define the toral Aluthge transform of $W_{(\alpha,\beta)}$ as follows \[\widetilde W_{(\alpha,\beta)}=(\widetilde T_1,\widetilde T_2)=(|T_1|^{1/2}U_1(|T_1|^{1/2}, |T_2|^{1/2}U_2(|T_2|^{1/2}).\] On the other hand, for $(T_1,T_2)=(U_1P,U_2P)$, where $P=\sqrt{T_1^*T_1+T_2^*T_2}$ and $\ker U_1\cap \ker U_2=\ker P$, the spherical Aluthge transform is defined by \[\widehat W_{(\alpha,\beta)}=(\widehat T_1,\widehat T_2)=(\sqrt{P} U_1\sqrt{P}, \sqrt{P}U_2\sqrt{P}).\] In the present paper, the authors prove that the spherical Aluthge transform is continuous on $\mathcal B(H)\times \mathcal B(H)$ (the toral Aluthge transform is obviously continuous). They also give equivalent conditions for the equality of Aluthge transforms and study their hyponormality.