Unbounded extensions and operator moment problems (Q531817)

The authors give a characterization of the existence of extensions of certain linear maps, defined in subspaces of fractions of continuous functions with values consisting of sesquilinear forms on inner product spaces (Theorem 2.5). More precisely, let \(\Omega\) be a compact Hausdorff space and let \(C(\Omega)\) stand for the algebra of continuous complex-valued functions endowed with the sup-norm. Given a family \(\mathcal{Q}\subseteq C(\Omega)\) of non-null positive elements of \(C(\Omega)\) which is multiplicative (\(1\in\mathcal{Q}\); \(q'q''\in\mathcal{Q}\) if \(q',q''\in\mathcal{Q}\); if \(qh=0\) for some \(q\in\mathcal{Q}\), \(h\in C(\Omega)\), then \(h=0\)) and is endowed with a multiplicative partial ordering ``\(\prec\)'' (\(q'\prec q''\) iff \(q'| q''\)), one can define for \(q\in\mathcal{Q}\) \[ C(\Omega)/q=\{f\in C(\Omega)/\mathcal{Q}: qf\in C(\Omega)\}, \] where \(C(\Omega)/\mathcal{Q}\) is the unital \(\mathbb{C}\)-algebra of fractions. Moreover, one can regard \(C(\Omega)/q\) as a Banach space with the norm \(\left\|f\right\|_{\infty,q}=\left\|qf\right\|_{\infty}\), \(f\in C(\Omega)/q\), and \(C(\Omega)/\mathcal{Q}\) as an inductive limit of Banach spaces. \((\mathcal{D},\left\langle \ast,\ast\right\rangle)\) is an inner product space and \(SF(\mathcal{D})\) stands for the vector space of sesquilinear forms on \(\mathcal{D}\). Under certain hypotheses on \(\mathcal{F}=\sum_{q\in\mathcal{Q}_{0}\subseteq\mathcal{Q}}\mathcal{F}_{q}\), with \(\mathcal{F}_{q}\) being a subspace of \(C(\Omega)/q\) and \(\phi:\mathcal{F}\to SF(\mathcal{D})\) linear and unital (for every \(q\in\mathcal{Q}_{0}\), \(\phi(1|_{C(\Omega)/q})(x,y)=\left\langle x,y\right\rangle\), \(x,y\in\mathcal{D}\)), and setting \(\phi_{q}=\phi|_{\mathcal{F}_{q}}\), \(\phi_{q,x}(\ast)=\phi_{q}(\ast)(x,x)\) for \(q\in \mathcal{Q}_{0}\), \(x\in\mathcal{D}\), the authors obtain an equivalent condition for the existence of an extension of \(\phi\) to a unital, positive linear map \(\psi\) on \(C(\Omega)/\mathcal{Q}\) such that, for all \(x\in\mathcal{D}\) and \(q\in\mathcal{Q}_{0}\), \[ \left\|\psi_{q,x}\right\|=\left\|\phi_{q,x}\right\|,\text{ where }\psi_{q}=\psi|_{C(\Omega)/q},\quad \psi_{q,x}(\ast)=\psi_{q}(\ast)(x,x). \] In addition, another equivalent statement is settled when departing from a symmetric subspace \(\mathcal{F}\) of \( C(\Omega)/\mathcal{Q}\). The previous result is applied (Theorem 3.2) in order to say whether a linear and unital map \(\phi\) from the algebra of polynomial functions on \(\mathbb{R}^n\) with complex coefficients to \(SF(\mathcal{D})\) does or does not admit a representing measure with prefixed closed support. This is to say, the existence of a positive measure \(F\) on the Borel subsets of \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) with values in the algebra of bounded linear operators of the complection of \(\mathcal{D}\), namely \(\mathcal{H}\), is sought, such that \[ \phi(p)(x,y)=\int p\phantom{p}dF_{xy}, \qquad F_{xy}:=\left\langle F(\ast)x,y\right\rangle,\quad x,y \in\mathcal{H}. \] In Theorem 3.3 and Theorem 3.4, the authors apply previous results to obtain equivalent conditions for the existence of selfadjoint or normal extensions for certain commuting families of unbounded operators. The equivalent conditions presented in this paper should provide useful tools for handling particular problems.