The fixed point property of a Banach algebra generated by an element with infinite spectrum (Q725183)

A Banach space \(X\) has the fixed point property if, for each closed, bounded, convex subset \(C\) of \(X\), each nonexpansive mapping \(T:C\to C\) has a fixed point. The main result of the article gives sufficient conditions for an infinite-dimensional unital abelian complex Banach algebra \(X\) to fail the fixed point property. In particular, assume that \(X\) satisfies three conditions: (i) for each \(x\in X\), there exists an element \(y\in X\) such that \(\tau(y)= \overline{\tau(x)}\) for each character \(\tau\) on the algebra \(X\); (ii) if \(x,y\in X\) satisfy \(|\tau(x)|\leq |\tau(y)|\) for each character \(\tau\) on \(X\), then \(\|x\| \leq \|y\|\); and (iii) \(\inf\{r(x): x\in X, \|x\|=1\} >0\) where \(r(x)\) is the spectral radius of \(x\). Then there exists an element \(x_0\) in \(X\) such that \(\langle x_0\rangle_{\mathbb{R}} = \overline{\{ \sum_{i=1}^k \alpha_ix_0^i: k\in\mathbb{N}, \alpha_i\in \mathbb{R}\}}\) fails to have the fixed point property. The authors note that the proof of the above result shows that, if \(x_0\) is a self-adjoint element in a unital abelian \(C^*\)-algebra, the algebra \(\langle x_0\rangle = \overline{\{ \sum_{i=1}^k \alpha_ix_0^i: k\in\mathbb{N}, \alpha_i\in \mathbb{C}\}}\) generated by \(x_0\) fails to have the fixed point property.