Hilbert space idempotents and involutions (Q4942914)

The author establishes a very important and useful geometric interpretation of the norm of a linear idempotent operator and of a linear involution operator on a Hilbert space. The main result is the following: Suppose that the Hilbert space \(H\) is the direct sum of proper subspaces \(R\) and \(K\). Let \(\theta\) be the angle between \(R\) and \(K\), let \(M\) be the idempotent with range \(R\) and kernel \(K\), and let \(V= 2M-I\) be the associated involution. Then (i) \(\|M\|=\|I-M\|= \|I-M^*\|= \|M^*\|= \text{csc}(\theta)\), (ii) \(\|M+ M^*- I\|= \text{scs}(\theta)\), (iii) \(\|M- M^*\|= \text{cot}(\theta)\), and (iv) \(\|V\|= \text{cot}(\theta/2)\).