Maps preserving the ascent and descent of product of operators (Q6155675)

Let \(\Phi\colon\mathbb{B}(\mathcal{X})\to\mathbb{B}(\mathcal{X})\) be a surjective (possibly nonlinear) map on the algebra of bounded operators on a real or complex infinite-dimensional Banach space \(\mathcal{X}\), and let \(\alpha(T)\) and \(\delta(T)\) denote the ascent and descent of an operator \(T\), respectively. It is shown that the following are equivalent: \medskip (i) \(\Phi(I)\) is surjective and \(\alpha(AB)=\alpha (\Phi(A)\Phi(B))\) for each \(A,B\). (ii) \(\Phi(I)\) is injective and \(\delta(AB)=\delta (\Phi(A)\Phi(B))\) for each \(A,B\). (iii) \(\Phi\colon X\mapsto k(X)TXT^{-1}\) for some invertible, bounded, linear or conjugate-linear \(T\colon\mathcal{X}\to\mathcal{X}\) and some function \(k\) which maps \(\mathbb{B}(\mathcal{X})\) to nonzero scalars. Similar (though not the same) description is valid also in finite-dimensional Banach spaces, where one can drop the conditions on \(\Phi(I)\). The proof proceeds by reduction to rank-one preserving maps and starts with the following classification of operators of rank at most one: \[ \hbox{rk}\, A\le 1\quad \Longleftrightarrow \quad \alpha(TA)\le 2 \;\forall\, T\quad \Longleftrightarrow\quad\delta(AT)\le 2\;\forall\, T. \]