More on positive commutators

Let A and B be positive operators on a Banach lattice E such that the commutator C=AB−BA is also positive. The paper continues the investigation of the spectral properties of C initiated in J. Bra?i? et al. (in press) [3]. If the sum A+B is a Riesz operator and the commutator C is a power compact operator, then C is a quasi-nilpotent operator having a triangularizing chain of closed ideals of E. If we assume that the operator A is compact and the commutator AC−CA is positive, the operator C is quasi-nilpotent as well. We also show that the commutator C is not invertible provided the resolvent set of C is connected.     

Geometric topological completions with universal final lifts

In this paper necessary and sufficient conditions are given on a concrete category over a category B so that it can be densely embedded (over B) into a geometric topological category E that admits certain universal final lifts. These conditions, as well as the class of universal final lifts, depend upon an a priori given full subcategory Δ of B. For example, E may have, depending upon Δ and B, universal coproducts or quotients or colimits. For appropriate Δ's, if B is cartesian closed then so is E.     

Sums and commutators of generators of noncommuting strongly continuous groups

We consider two infinitesimal generators A, B of strongly continuous groups in a general Banach space X, such that either the commutator between A and B commutes both with e^tA and with e^tB, or the commutator is a multiple of A. We prove that under suitable assumptions the sum A+B and the commutator [A,B] are closable, and their closures generate strongly continuous groups. We give explicit representation formulas for such groups, in terms of e^tA and e^tB.     

Algebraic logoi

We introduce normal cores, as well as the more general action cores, in the context of a semi-abelian category, and further generalise those to split extension cores in the context of a homological category. We prove that, if the category is moreover well-powered with (small) joins, then the existence of split extension cores is equivalent to the condition that the change-of-base functors in the fibration of points are geometric. We call a finitely complete category that satisfies this condition an algebraic logos. We give examples of such categories, compare them with algebraically coherent ones, and study equivalent conditions as well as stability under common categorical operations.     

Actions in the Category of Precrossed Modules in Lie Algebras

For any object L in the category of precrossed modules in Lie algebras PXLie, we construct the object Act(L), which we call the actor of this object. From this construction, we derive the notions of action, center, semidirect product, derivation, commutator, and abelian precrossed module in PXLie. We show that the notion of action is equivalent to the one given in semi-abelian categories, and Act(L) is the split extension classifier for L. In the case of a crossed module in Lie algebras we show how to recover its actor in the category of crossed modules from its actor in the category of precrossed modules.     

A Torsion Theory in the Category of Cocommutative Hopf Algebras

The purpose of this article is to prove that the category of cocommutative Hopf K-algebras, over a field K of characteristic zero, is a semi-abelian category. Moreover, we show that this category is action representable, and that it contains a torsion theory whose torsion-free and torsion parts are given by the category of groups and by the category of Lie K-algebras, respectively.     

Higher Hopf formulae for homology via Galois Theory

We use Janelidze's Categorical Galois Theory to extend Brown and Ellis's higher Hopf formulae for homology of groups to arbitrary semi-abelian monadic categories. Given such a category A and a chosen Birkhoff subcategory B of A, thus we describe the Barr-Beck derived functors of the reflector of A onto B in terms of centralization of higher extensions. In case A is the category Gp of all groups and B is the category Ab of all abelian groups, this yields a new proof for Brown and Ellis's formulae. We also give explicit formulae in the cases of groups vs. k-nilpotent groups, groups vs. k-solvable groups and precrossed modules vs. crossed modules.     

On the positive commutator in the radical

In this paper we prove that a positive commutator between a positive compact operator A and a positive operator B is in the radical of the Banach algebra generated by A and B. Furthermore, on every at least three-dimensional Banach lattice we construct finite rank operators A and B satisfying \(AB\ge BA\ge 0\) such that the commutator \(AB-BA\) is not contained in the radical of the Banach algebra generated by A and B. These two results now completely answer to two open questions published in (Bra?i? et al., Positivity 14:431–439, 2010). We also obtain relevant results in the case of the Volterra and the Donoghue operator.     

Class product and character product

For each finite group G, the product in the group ring of all the conjugacy class sums is a positive integer multiple of the sum of the elements in a special coset of the commutator subgroup G′, as Brauer and Wielandt first observed in the case G′ =  G. We show that the corresponding special element G! in A := G/G′ is the product of B! over specified subgroups B of A. Somewhat analogously, the product of all the irreducible characters of G, restricted to the center Z of G, is a multiple of a special linear character !G of Z, and !G is the product of !(Z/Y) over specified subgroups Y of Z.     

Tensor products and relation quantales

A classical tensor product \({A \otimes B}\) of complete lattices A and B, consisting of all down-sets in \({A \times B}\) that are join-closed in either coordinate, is isomorphic to the complete lattice Gal(A,B) of Galois maps from A to B, turning arbitrary joins into meets. We introduce more general kinds of tensor products for closure spaces and for posets. They have the expected universal property for bimorphisms (separately continuous maps or maps preserving restricted joins in the two components) into complete lattices. The appropriate ingredient for quantale constructions is here distributivity at the bottom, a generalization of pseudocomplementedness. We show that the truncated tensor product of a complete lattice B with itself becomes a quantale with the closure of the relation product as multiplication iff B is pseudocomplemented, and that the tensor product has a unit element iff B is atomistic. The pseudocomplemented complete lattices form a semicategory in which the hom-set between two objects is their tensor product. The largest subcategory of that semicategory has as objects the atomic boolean complete lattices, which is equivalent to the category of sets and relations. More general results are obtained for closure spaces and posets.     

Toeplitz algebras on the disk

Let B be a Douglas algebra and let B be the algebra on the disk generated by the harmonic extensions of the functions in B. In this paper we show that B is generated by H^∞(D) and the complex conjugates of the harmonic extensions of the interpolating Blaschke products invertible in B. Every element S in the Toeplitz algebra TB generated by Toeplitz operators (on the Bergman space) with symbols in B has a canonical decomposition for some R in the commutator ideal CTB; and S is in CTB iff the Berezin transform vanishes identically on the union of the maximal ideal space of the Douglas algebra B and the set M₁ of trivial Gleason parts.     

Analysis of a problem of Raikov with applications to barreled and bornological spaces

Raikov’s conjecture states that semi-abelian categories are quasi-abelian. A first counterexample is contained in a paper of Bonet and Dierolf who considered the category of bornological locally convex spaces. We prove that every semi-abelian category I admits a left essential embedding into a quasi-abelian category K_l(I) such that I can be recovered from K_l(I) by localization. Conversely, it is shown that left essential full subcategories I of a quasi-abelian category are semi-abelian, and a criterion for I to be quasi-abelian is given. Applied to categories of locally convex spaces, the criterion shows that barreled or bornological spaces are natural counterexamples to Raikov’s conjecture. Using a dual argument, the criterion leads to a simplification of Bonet and Dierolf’s example.     

A characterization of BMO in terms of endpoint bounds for commutators of singular integrals

We provide a characterization of BMO in terms of endpoint boundedness of commutators of singular integrals. In particular, in one dimension, we show that ∥b∥_BMO ? B, where B is the best constant in the endpoint L log L modular estimate for the commutator [H, b]. We provide a similar characterization of the space BMO in terms of endpoint boundedness of higher order commutators of the Hilbert transform. In higher dimension we give the corresponding characterization of BMO in terms of the first order commutators of the Riesz transforms. We also show that these characterizations can be given in terms of commutators of more general singular integral operators of convolution type.     

Computation of the commutator of 2 × 2 matrices via five multiplications

Algorithms for computing the commutator AB ? BA of 2 × 2 matrices A and B are proposed that involve five multiplications.     

A semi-abelian extension of a theorem by Takeuchi

We prove that the category of cocommutative Hopf algebras over a field is a semi-abelian category. This result extends a previous special case of it, based on the Milnor–Moore theorem, where the field was assumed to have zero characteristic. Takeuchi's theorem asserting that the category of commutative and cocommutative Hopf algebras over a field is abelian immediately follows from this new observation. We also prove that the category of cocommutative Hopf algebras over a field is action representable. We make some new observations concerning the categorical commutator of normal Hopf subalgebras, and this leads to the proof that two definitions of crossed modules of cocommutative Hopf algebras are equivalent in this context.     

Splitting and conjoining objects in monotopological categories

Power-sets are defined for any concrete category (over Set) with finite concrete products, and their structure described for monotopological categories. These sets are used to define the notions of splitting object and of conjoining object. Characterizations of the existence of these objects in monotopological categories are given. It is proved that no proper monotopological category can be concretely cartesian closed. Most well-known monotopological categories with splitting objects are topological or are c-categories, but it is shown that there are many proper monotopological categories which are not c-categories, and yet have splitting objects, and may even be cartesian closed. One of the characterizations of the existence of splitting objects is used to prove that a monotopological category with splitting objects is cartesian closed iff the largest initial completion in which it is epireflective is cartesian closed iff its MacNeille completion is cartesian closed.     

Ranks of commutators of Toeplitz operators on the harmonic Bergman space

We study the rank of commutators of two Toeplitz operators on the harmonic Bergman space of the unit disk. We first show that the commutator of any two Toeplitz operators with general symbols can’t have an odd rank. But, given any integer n ≥ 0, we also show that there are two symbols for which the corresponding Toeplitz operators induce the commutator with rank 2n exactly.     

Funayama’s theorem revisited

Funayama’s theorem states that there is an embedding e of a lattice L into a complete Boolean algebra B such that e preserves all existing joins and meets in L iff L satisfies the join infinite distributive law (JID) and the meet infinite distributive law (MID). More generally, there is a lattice embedding e: L → B preserving all existing joins in L iff L satisfies (JID), and there is a lattice embedding e: L → B preserving all existing meets in L iff L satisfies (MID). Funayama’s original proof is quite involved. There are two more accessible proofs in case L is complete. One was given by Grätzer by means of free Boolean extensions and MacNeille completions, and the other by Johnstone by means of nuclei and Booleanization. We show that Grätzer’s proof has an obvious generalization to the non-complete case, and that in the complete case the complete Boolean algebras produced by Grätzer and Johnstone are isomorphic. We prove that in the non-complete case, the class of lattices satisfying (JID) properly contains the class of Heyting algebras, and we characterize lattices satisfying (JID) and (MID) by means of their Priestley duals. Utilizing duality theory, we give alternative proofs of Funayama’s theorem and of the isomorphism between the complete Boolean algebras produced by Grätzer and Johnstone. We also show that unlike Grätzer’s proof, there is no obvious way to generalize Johnstone’s proof to the non-complete case.     

A characterization of maximum norms of commutators of positive contractions

In this note, we give a characterization of a pair (A,B) of positive contractions with commutator AB−BA of maximum possible norm. A necessary and sufficient condition is that either or its complex conjugate is in the closure of the numerical range of AB.