Fejer's approximation of continuous functions of unitary operators (Q4710180)

The purpose of this paper is to define the operator \(f(U)\) when \(f\) is a continuous function on the complex unit circle and \(U\) is a unitary operator on a Hilbert space with inner product \(\langle\cdot,\cdot\rangle\). First, the Riesz representation algorithm implies the existence of a Borel measure \(\mu_{x,y}\) that solves the moment problem \[ \int_0^{2\pi} e^{ikt}\mu_{x,y}(dt)=\langle U^kx,y\rangle,\quad k\in{\mathbb Z}. \] Then, a Cesàro summation technique for the Fourier series of \(f\) gives trigonometric polynomial approximants to \(f(e^{it})\) and thus also to \(f(U)\). Finally, the uniform convergence of these approximants allows to define a bounded operator \(f(U)\) which satisfies \[ \int_0^{2\pi} f(e^{it})\mu_{x,y}(dt)=\langle f(U)x,y\rangle. \] It is also shown that the map from \(f(e^{it})\) to \(f(U)\) is a \(*\)-homomorphism between the \(C^*\)-algebra of \(2\pi\)-periodic functions and the \(C^*\)-algebra of bounded operators on the Hilbert space.