Spectral theory of linear operators and spectral systems in Banach algebras (Q5917515)

The book under review is a contribution to the development of spectral theory in Banach spaces. In the author's own words, ``the aim is to present a survey of results concerning various types of spectra in a unified, axiomatic way.'' Chapter I has the title ``Banach Algebras'' and contains both basic concepts and more specific topics needed later on. The first part of the chapter is mainly devoted to commutative Banach algebras. The last three sections of Chapter I are devoted to an axiomatic approach to the spectral theory in Banach algebras. The approach is based on the notion of regularity, which is a subset of a Banach algebra that reduces to the set of invertible elements in the case of the usual spectral theory. Other examples of regularities are the sets of left invertible elements, right invertible elements, left non-divisors of zero, etc., and each regularity naturally leads to a concept of spectrum, such as: left spectrum, right spectrum, left point spectrum, etc. Similarly, using the concept of joint regularity (which is a set of commuting tuples of elements in a Banach algebra), one can introduce a sort of axiomatic joint spectra called spectral systems. Thus, a spectral system is a mapping that associates to every commuting tuple \((a_1,\dots,a_n)\) a subset of \({\mathbb C}^n\) such that the set corresponding to each \((a_{i_1},\dots,a_{i_k})\) can be obtained by the natural projection \({\mathbb C}^n\to{\mathbb C}^k\), \((z_1,\dots,z_n)\mapsto(z_{i_1},\dots,z_{i_k})\). Chapter II is entitled simply ``Operators''. The first section records the basic spectral theory of Banach space operators. The second section concerns operators with closed range and continuity properties of the so-called reduced minimum modulus \(\gamma(\cdot)\) (for a Banach space operator \(T: X\to Y\), one defines \(\gamma(T)=\inf\{\|Tx\|\mid x\in X,\text{dist} (x,\text{Ker} T)=1\}\)). The third section of the chapter includes factorization theorems for operator-valued regular functions \(T(\cdot)\); regularity at some point \(z_0\) means that the operator \(T(z_0)\) has closed range and the function \(\gamma(T(\cdot))\) is continuous at \(z_0\). A closely related notion is the one of Kato operators, which are precisely the operators \(S\) on some Banach space \(X\) such that the function \(z\mapsto S-z\) is regular at \(z=0\in{\mathbb C}\). With the terminology introduced in Chapter I, one proves that the Kato operators constitute a regularity, thus naturally leading to the notion of Kato spectrum. The last two sections of Chapter II concern generalized inverses of operators (which are related to another example of regularity, namely the one constituted by the Saphar operators) and local spectrum, respectively. Chapter III is devoted to the idea of essential spectrum. The spectral theory of compact operators is exposed at the very beginning of this chapter. The author then develops the basic properties of Fredholm and semi-Fredholm operators; in particular, he shows that these sets of operators constitute regularities. Subsequently, a basic tool in the study of essential spectra is exposed, namely the functor that associates to any Banach space \(X\) the quotient of the bounded sequences of elements in \(X\) modulo the subspace of relatively compact sequences. The essential spectra are then introduced as spectra associated to the aforementioned regularities. The essential spectra of commuting tuples of operators are defined in terms of spectra of the projections into Calkin algebras. These essential spectra turn out to be spectral systems in the sense of Chapter I. Other spectral systems are then introduced, namely the Browder and semi-Browder spectra. In the case of a single operator, \(T\) is Browder if and only if it is Fredholm and has both finite ascent and finite descent. The author then studies the spectrum that corresponds to the regularity of essentially Kato operators. An operator \(T\) on some Banach space \(X\) belongs to that regularity if \(\text{Ran} T\) is closed and there exists a finite-dimensional subspace \(F\) of \(X\) such that \(\text{Ker} T\subseteq F +\bigcap_{n=1}^\infty\text{Ran} T^n\). A systematic study of classes of operators defined in terms of kernels and ranges is then performed. The last paragraph of Chapter III is devoted to measures of noncompactness and related operator quantities. What one is doing here is to study essential versions of some basic quantities describing an operator \(T\) on a Banach space \(X\), namely the norm \(\|T\|\), the injectivity modulus \(j(T)=\inf\{\|Tx\|\mid x\in X,\|x\|=1\}\) and the surjectivity modulus \(k(T)=\sup\{r\geq 0\mid T(B_X)\supseteq r\cdot B_X\}\), where \(B_X\) stands for the unit ball in \(X\). Chapter IV has the title ``Taylor Spectrum''. At the very beginning of this chapter, the author defines the Taylor and Słodkowski spectra in the special case of commuting systems of operators, and proves that these spectra are upper semicontinuous spectral systems. The definition of these spectra amounts to checking the exactness of the Koszul complex associated with a commuting tuple of operators. When exactness is replaced by split exactness (that is, one additionally requires the existence of certain direct complements, which is always the case in Hilbert spaces), we get the definition of split spectra. The exposition then proceeds with two classical topics in the theory of Taylor spectrum: the holomorphic functional calculus (approached here in a manner due to the author, by using some ideas from nonlinear analysis) and the local spectral theory. The chapter concludes with stability theorems for the index of semi-Fredholm complexes, and a discussion of the essential Taylor spectrum. The fifth chapter of the book is called ``Orbits and Capacity''. The first paragraph of this chapter concerns the notion of joint spectral radius for commuting tuples of elements in Banach algebras. The author then studies the analogous notion of capacity for commuting tuples. In the remaining sections of the chapter, he focuses on the related notions of orbits \(\{T^nx\mid n\in{\mathbb N}\}\), weak orbits \(\{x^*(T^nx)\mid n\in{\mathbb N}\}\) and polynomial orbits \(\{p(T)x\mid p\in{\mathbb C}[z]\}\) of some operator \(T\) on a Banach space, where \(x\in X\) and \(x^*\in X^*\). The importance of these notions in connection with invariant subspace problems is crucial. The author performs a systematic study of the orbits by means of the spectral radius and of the local spectral radius \(r_x(T)=\limsup_{n\to\infty}\|T^nx\|^{1/n}\). The polynomial orbits are studied with the help of the analogous notion of local capacity. The prototype of the theorems one is looking for is Kaplansky's theorem asserting that if for every \(x\in X\) there exists \(p_x\in{\mathbb C}[z]\) with \(p_x(T)x=0\), then there exists \(p\in{\mathbb C}[z]\) such that \(p(T)=0\). E.g., the very last statement of the chapter says that a commuting tuple of operators is locally quasialgebraic if and only if it is quasialgebraic. The book has an extensive bibliography and an appendix including topics as Banach spaces, analytic vector-valued functions, \(C^\infty\)-functions and semicontinuous set-valued functions. At the end of each chapter one can find a number of comments on the main topics treated there.