A note on commutators in algebras of unbounded operators

DOI10.1016/J.EXMATH.2020.01.004MaRDI QIDQ2196497zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Richard V. Kadison, Zhe Liu, Andreas Thom

Publication date 2 September 2020

Published in Expositiones Mathematicae (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.10711

zbMATH Keywords

commutatorsrings of operatorsvon Neumann algebras

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General theory of von Neumann algebras (46L10) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to operator theory (47-02) Commutators, derivations, elementary operators, etc. (47B47) Abstract operator algebras on Hilbert spaces (47L30) Algebras of unbounded operators; partial algebras of operators (47L60)

Abstract: We show that the identity is the sum of two commutators in the algebra of all operators affiliated with a von Neumann algebra of type II${}_1$, settling a question, in the negative, that had puzzled a number of us.

Review text

The authors discuss the question of expressing an operator in an algebra of Hilbert space operators as a sum of commutators. They first note how the subject of commutators is related to derivations and describe the historical developements in the study of commutators. They then provide a survey of a number of important commutator results for special classes of operators. In the main new result here, they prove that, if \(\mathcal{R}\) denotes a von Neumann algebra of type \(\mathrm{II}_1\) and \(\mathscr{A}_f(\mathcal{R})\) is the algebra of all the (not necessarily bounded) operators affiliated with \(\mathcal{R}\), then the identity operator \(I\) in \(\mathcal{R}\) is the sum of two commutators in \(\mathscr{A}_f(\mathcal{R})\). This result leads to a negative answer to a conjecture made by the first two authors in [SIGMA, Symmetry Integrability Geom. Methods Appl. 10, Paper 009, 40 p. (2014; Zbl 1410.81008)] because it shows that there is a noncommutative polynomial in several variables with the property that whenever the variables are replaced by operators in \(\mathcal{R}\) the resulting operator has trace \(0\) but, replacing the variables with operators in \(\mathscr{A}_f(\mathcal{R})\), may yield a bounded operator with nonzero trace.

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Cited in

(23)

• On commutators in algebras of unbounded operators
• Remarks on commutators with operators having either finite nullity of finite deficiency
• Sums of commutators in ideals and modules of type II factors.
• A note on commutation relations and finite dimensional approximations
• Notes on derivations of Murray-von Neumann algebras
• Unbounded weighted conditional type operators on Orlicz spaces
• Commutators in \(C^\ast\)-algebras and traces
• On single commutators in II\(_{1}\)-factors
• Cohomology of Jordan triples via Lie algebras
• Additive and Multiplicative Commutators in Algebras of Unbounded Operators
• Unbounded operators commuting with the commutant of a restricted backward shift
• On commutative algebras of unbounded operators
• A Note on Commuting Unbounded Self-Adjoint Operators Affiliated to Properly infinite Von Neumann Algebras II
• Commutators in the Jiang-Su algebra
• Geometry of word equations in simple algebraic groups over special fields
• A Note on Commutativity of Unbounded Representations
• Commutators of non-self-adjoint operator algebras
• Commutators with Powers of an Unbounded Operator in Hilbert Space
• Commutators in Properly Infinite Von Neumann Algebras
• Non-existence of translation-invariant derivations on algebras of measurable functions
• Linear isometries of noncommutative \(L_0\)-spaces
• Commutator estimates for normal operators in factors with applications to derivations
• Matrix algebras over algebras of unbounded operators

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