The classical monotone convergence theorem of Beppo Levi fails in noncommutative -spaces

Let be a complex Hilbert space and let be a von Neumann algebra over equipped with a faithful, normal state . Then is a prehilbert space with respect to the inner product , whose completion is given by the Gelfand-Naimark-Segal representation theorem, according to which there exist a one-to-one -homomorphism of into the algebra of all bounded linear operators acting on and a cyclic, separating vector such that for all . Given any separable Hilbert space , we construct a faithful, normal state on and an increasing sequence of positive operators acting on such that is bounded, but fails to converge both bundlewise and in -norm. We also present an example of an increasing sequence of positive operators which has a subsequence converging both bundlewise and in -norm, but the whole sequence fails to converge in either sense. Finally, we observe that our results are linked to a previous one by R. V. Kadison.