No label defined (Q3974036)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0722.00021.] Let \(E\) be a finite-dimensional complex Hilbert space and \(\Delta\) a \(C^*\)-subalgebra of the algebra \(L(E)\) of bounded operators on \(E\). The structured singular value of an operator \(A\in L(E)\) is defined to be \[ \mu_ \Delta(A):=[\inf\{\| X\|: X\in \Delta, (1+AX)^{-1}\text{ does not exist}\}]^{-1}. \] It has been argued by J. Doyle and others that this object is a natural conceptual ingredient in analyzing robustness issues in control theory. However a serious draback is that it is difficult to compute. A related more easily computable object is the quantity \[ \hat\mu_ \Delta:=\inf\{\| DAD^{-1}\|: D\in \Delta', D\text{ invertible}\}. \] The authors show that this quantity in fact is equal to the structured singular value for \(A\) considered in a larger algebra of operators and use this result to recover a result of Doyle that \(\mu_ \Delta=\hat\mu_ \Delta\) if \(\Delta\) is a diagonal algebra with three or fewer blocks. The authors also discuss variants of the commutant lifting theorem and classical matricial Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation, where the goal is to control the size of the structured singular value of the lift (or the maximum pointwise structured singular value of an interpolant) rather than the operator norm of the lift (or supremum norm of the interpolant, respectively). This last topic continues earlier work of the authors.