Essential normality of operators close to isometries (Q453665)

In the paper under review, the essential normality for operators on a separable Hilbert space \(H\) is discussed. Let \(p(z,w)\) be a polynomial in two non-commuting variables and \({\mathcal F}\) be a collection of bounded operators on \(H\) which is invariant for every unital \(\ast\)-representation and \(p(N,N^*)=0\) whenever \(N\in {\mathcal F}\) is invertible. The main theorem of the paper says that \(p(T,T^*)\) is compact for every \(T\in {\mathcal F}\) which is a Fredholm operator. The proof is relatively simple as the assumptions are quite strong. Some consequences of the main theorem related to essential \(m\)-isometries and some other classes of operators are presented as well.