Self-adjoint algebras of unbounded operators

Unbounded *-representations of *-algebras are studied. Representations called self-adjoint representations are defined in analogy to the definition of a self-adjoint operator. It is shown that for self-adjoint representations certain pathologies associated with commutant and reducing subspaces are avoided. A class of well behaved self-adjoint representations, called standard representations, are defined for commutative *-algebras. It is shown that a strongly cyclic self-adjoint representation of a commutative *-algebra is standard if and only if the representation is strongly positive, i.e., the representations preserves a certain order relation. Similar results are obtained for *-representations of the canonical commutation relations for a finite number of degrees of freedom.Work supported in part by U.S. Atomic Energy Commission under Contract AT(30-1)-2171 and by the National Science Foundation.Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.