Operator means deformed by a fixed point method (Q782511)

The study of operator means began with the work of \textit{W. N. Anderson jun.} and \textit{R. J. Duffin} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 26, 576--594 (1969; Zbl 0177.04904)] who first studied the arithmetic and harmonic means and proved the arithmetic-harmonic mean inequality. The geometric mean was introduced by \textit{W. Pusz} and \textit{S. L. Woronowicz} [Rep. Math. Phys. 8, 159--170 (1975; Zbl 0327.46032)]. \textit{T. Ando} [Linear Algebra Appl. 26, 203--241 (1979; Zbl 0495.15018)] proved the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality. The axiomatic theory for connections and means for pairs of positive operators was developed by \textit{K. Nishio} and \textit{T. Ando} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 53, 539--549 (1976; Zbl 0332.94010)] and \textit{F. Kubo} and \textit{T. Ando} [Math. Ann. 246, 205--224 (1980; Zbl 0412.47013)]. An operator connection \(\sigma \) is a binary operation on the set of positive operators \(A,B,C,\dots \) on a Hilbert space satisfying the following axioms: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] \(A\le C, B\le D \) imply \(A\sigma B\le C\sigma D\), \item[(ii)] \( C(A\sigma B)C \le (CAC)\sigma (CBC)\), \item[(iii)] \(A_k\downarrow A\) and \(B_k\downarrow B\) imply \(( A_k\sigma B_k)\downarrow ( A\sigma B)\). \end{itemize} A mean is a connection with normalization condition \begin{itemize} \item[(iv)] \(I\sigma I=I\). \end{itemize} Kubo and Ando [loc.\,cit.]\ proved that there is an isomorphism between the class of connections and positive operator monotone functions \(f_\sigma\) (called the representing function of \(\sigma \)) on \((0,\infty )\). This isomorphism \(\sigma \leftrightarrow f_\sigma\) is characterized by the relation \[A\sigma B= A^{1/2}f_\sigma (A^{-1/2}BA^{-1/2})A^{1/2}.\] The operator monotone functions \(\frac{x+1}{2}\), \(x^{1/2}\) and \(\frac{2x}{x+1}\) give the arithmetic mean (\(A\Delta B)\), the geometric mean \((A\# B)\) and the harmonic mean \((A!B)\), respectively. If \(f_\sigma \) is the representing function of a connection \(\sigma\), then the connection corresponding to the operator monotone function \(x(f_\sigma (x))^{-1}\) is called the dual \((\sigma ^{\perp})\) of \(\sigma \). In his unpublished thesis, Kubo considered the map \(\theta \) on the set of positive operators for a pair \(\sigma ,\tau\) of operator means and operators \(A,B\) defined by \[\theta (X)= (A\sigma X)\tau (B\sigma X)\] and proved that the iterates converges to a fixed point of \(\theta \) which is unique among \(X\) such that \(X \ge c( A^{-1}+B^{-1})^{-1}\) for some \(c>0.\) It is also shown that \[\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty }\theta ^n\left (\frac{A+B}{2}\right )= \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty }\theta ^n\left(2(A^{-1}+B^{-1})^{-1}\right). \] \textit{Yu. M. Arlinskij} [Ukr. Math. J. 42, No. 6, 639--645 (1990), translation from Ukr. Mat. Zh. 42, No. 6, 723--730 (1990; Zbl 0709.47018)] proved that the geometric mean is the unique fixed point of the map \(X\rightarrow (A\Delta X)!(B\Delta X)\). Extending this result further, \textit{J. S. Aujla} [Linear Algebra Appl. 290, No. 1--3, 109--118 (1999; Zbl 0931.15018)] proved that the geometric mean is the unique fixed point of \(\theta \) in the case when \( \tau =\sigma ^{\perp }\). In Section 2, the author proves that the map \(\theta \) has a unique fixed point and denotes it by \(A\tau_\sigma B\). Then the author proves that \(\tau_\sigma \) itself defines an operator mean and calls it deformed operator mean. In Section~3, the author discusses some properties of the deformed operator means \(\tau_\sigma \) and some examples are also provided. It was a long standing problem to define the geometric mean of more than two operators. In 2004, Ando, Li and Mathias [\textit{T. Ando} et al., Linear Algebra Appl. 385, 305--334 (2004; Zbl 1063.47013)] defined the geometric mean for more than two operators (multivariate geometric mean) in an iterative way and studied its various properties. Then \textit{M. Moakher} [SIAM J. Matrix Anal. Appl. 26, No. 3, 735--747 (2005; Zbl 1079.47021)], \textit{R. Bhatia} and \textit{J. Holbrook} [Linear Algebra Appl. 413, No. 2--3, 594--618 (2006; Zbl 1088.15022)] defined multivariate geometric means using differential geometry approach and studied their properties. After this, several definitions of multivariate geometric mean were proposed and studied by several authors. In Section~4 of the present paper, the author considers a multivariate mean \(M\) satisfying certain properties, operator means \(\sigma _1,\dots ,\sigma _k\), and positive operators \(A_1,\dots ,A_k\). It is shown that the map \(F(X)=M(X\sigma _1A_1,\dots ,X\sigma _k A_k)\) has a unique fixed point. This unique fixed point is called multivariate deformed mean. Some of its properties are studied here. A~reasonable number of references are given.