On the calculus of order bounded operators (Q850564)

Let \(E, F\) be Riesz spaces with \(F\) Dedekind complete. Let \(L^\sim (E, F)\) be the order bounded linear operators from \(E\) to \(F\). Formulas exist for lattice operations in \(L^\sim (E, F)\). For example, given \(x \in E^+\), \(S, T \in L^\sim (E, F)\), then \[ (S \vee T) (x) = \sup \,\{S y + Tz : y, z \in E^+, \; x = y+z\}. \] A collection of similar formulas is called order calculus. Yu.\,Abramovich (to whom the paper is dedicated) gave an instance of order calculus in which the suprema and infima can be taken over a disjoint decomposition of the argument. This collection of formulas is called Abramovich calculus. The authors note that to validate an order calculus, it suffices to work with elementary components. Various approaches to elementary components are unified by the idea of a generating family of band projections in \(L^\sim (E, F)\). A set \({\mathcal P}\) of band projections in \(L^\sim (E, F)\) is called generating if for all \(0 \leq T\) in \(L (E,F)\) and \(x \in E\), \[ T x^+ = \sup \,\{p Tx : p \in {\mathcal P} \}. \] Examples as well as necessary and sufficient conditions are given for a family \({\mathcal P}\) to be a generating family. The relation between the validy of Abramovich calculus and the existence of a generating family of projections is established. The relation between the existence of a generating family of band projections and the components of a positive operator is discussed via an up-down theorem. The paper continues with the ideas and problems related to the following heuristic principle stemming from Yu.\,Abramovich: If the elementary components of a positive operator possess some property, then this property or a modification of the same property is satisfied by every operator in the principal ideal generated by the original operator. The authors give a recipe to check this principle and they present some examples, the first of which is the Dodds--Fremlin theorem.