Cancellability and regularity of operator connections with applications to nonlinear operator equations involving means (Q903209)

Let \(\mathcal H\) be a Hilbert space and \({\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)\) denote the space of all bounded linear operators on \(\mathcal H\). For Hermitian operators \(A,B \in {\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)\) the notation \(A \leq B\) stands for the fact that the operator \(B-A\) is \textit{positive} (viz., \(\langle (B-A)x,x \rangle \geq 0\) for all \(x \in {\mathcal H}\)). \(A < B\) denotes the fact that \(B-A\) is \textit{strictly positive} (the inequality being strict for all non-zero vectors, in the above). Let \({\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)^+\) denote the set of all positive operators in \({\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)\). A \textit{connection} \(\sigma\) is a binary operation on \({\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)^+\) such that for all \(A,B,C,D \in {\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)^+\), one has: \(A \leq B, C \leq D \Longrightarrow A \sigma B \leq C \sigma D\); \(C(A \sigma B)C \leq (CAC) \sigma (CBC)\) and if \(A_n, B_n \in {\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)^+\) are decreasing sequences converging strongly to \(A,B\) respectively, then \(A_n \sigma B_n\) is a decreasing sequence converging strongly to \(A \sigma B\). Recall that a function \(f\) defined on the nonnegative real numbers is said to be \textit{operator monotone} if \(A \leq B \Longrightarrow fA) \leq f(B)\) for all \(A,B \in {\mathcal B}(\mathcal H)^+\) and for all Hilbert spaces \(\mathcal H\). A rather well-known result states that for any connection \(\sigma\), one can associate a unique operator monotone function \(f\) such that \(f(x)I=I \sigma (xI)\) whenever \(x \geq 0\). It is also known that for any connection \(\sigma\), there is a Borel measure \(\mu\) on \([0,1]\) that gives rise to a function \(g\) on the nonnegative real numbers such that \(g(A)=I \sigma A\) for all positive operators \(A\). A connection \(\sigma\) is said to \textit{cancellable} if for strictly positive \(A\) and positive \(B,C\), one has the implication \(A \sigma B=A \sigma C\) and \(B \sigma A= C \sigma A \Longrightarrow B=C\). The author shows, among other things, that a connection \(\sigma\) is cancellable if and only if the associated function \(f\) is neither a constant function nor a scalar multiple of the identity, which in turn holds if and only if the Borel measure \(\mu\) is not a scalar multiple of the Dirac measure at zero or at one. Applications to nonlinear operator equations are considered.