No label defined (Q4807969)

In this paper, trace functionals on ideals in the algebra \(B(H)\) of all bounded linear operators acting on the complex infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert space \(H\) are constructed and studied. If \(J \subset B(H)\) is an ideal, then the linear function \(\tau \) on \(J\) is called a trace if it satisfies \[ \tau(AT)=\tau (TA) \] for every \(T\in J\) and \(A \in B(H)\). The usual trace functional \(\roman{Tr}\) defined on the ideal of all trace-class operators is well-known to have this property. If \(T\) is a positive compact operator which does not belong to the trace class, then the sequence of the partial sums \[ \sigma_n(T)=\sum_{i=1}^n \lambda_i(T), \qquad n\in \mathbb{N} \] diverges to \(\infty\). (Here, \((\lambda_n(T))\) denotes the monotonically arranged sequence of the eigenvalues of \(T\) according to multiplicity.) It is a common way (especially in modern physics) to combat divergences of any kind by a process of so-called ``renormalization''. In the present paper, the author constructs traces on operator ideals applying such methods. Namely, let \(J\) be a given operator ideal and \(\alpha\) be a given sequence of positive real numbers. For every \(T\in J\), the map \[ n\longmapsto \sigma_n(T)/\alpha_n, \] being a complex-valued function on the discrete topological space \(\mathbb{Z}_+\) of all positive integers, can be uniquely extended to a continuous function from the Stone-Čech compactification \(\beta\mathbb{Z}_+\) of \(\mathbb{Z}_+\) to \(\overline{\mathbb{C}}=\overline{\mathbb{R}}+i \overline{\mathbf{R}}\) (\(\overline{\mathbb{R}}=[-\infty, \infty]\)). The restriction of this function to the set \({\mathbb{N}}_\infty=\beta {\mathbb{Z}}_+ \setminus {\mathbb{Z}}_+\) of ``infinite'' positive integers is denoted by \(\lim \sigma(T)/\alpha\), while its value at a point \(p\in {\mathbb{N}}_\infty\) is denoted by \(\lim_p \sigma(T)/\alpha\). If for a point \(p\in {\mathbb{N}}_\infty\) the function \[ T \longmapsto \lim_p \sigma(T)/\alpha, \tag{1} \] considered on the positive cone \(J_+\) of \(J\), is additive and has finite values, then it extends to a trace on \(J\) (which may happen to be zero if \(\alpha\) grows too rapidly). Therefore, it is important to determine the following two sets: the set \({\mathbb{A}}_\alpha(J)\) of the points \(p\in {\mathbb{N}}_\infty\) for which the function in (1) is additive on \(J_+\) and the set \({\mathbb{F}}_\alpha(J)\) of the points \(p\in {\mathbb{N}}_\infty\) for which it has finite values. This is exactly the main aim of the paper. In fact, after some preliminaries about sequences and traces, the author presents a fine analysis of the sets \({\mathbb{A}}_\alpha(J)\) and \({\mathbb{F}}_\alpha(J)\) defined above in relation with the renormalization of the sequence \((\sigma_n(T))\) of partial sums. Next, a similar study is carried out concerning the renormalization of the sequence of remainders (i.e., instead of the partial sums \(\sigma_n(T)=\sum_{i=1}^n \lambda_i(T)\), here the remainders \(\sigma_{n, \infty}(T)=\sum_{i=n+1}^\infty \lambda_i(T)\) are under consideration). Renormalization of the sequence of the so-called interval sums is also studied. In the last section, the author presents a new proof of his former result characterizing the commutator space \([B(H),J]\) for an arbitrary ideal \(J\) in \(B(H)\).