Commutants modulo the compact operators of certain CSL algebras II

The commutant modulo compacts, or essential commutant, of a reflexive algebra with commutative subspace lattice is a C^* algebra which is the sum of the compact operators in L(H) and a C^* subalgebra of the core. We give a characterization of the essential commutant of a separably acting CSL algebra in terms of properties of the spectral measure of an operator in the intersection of the essential commutant and the core. This is used to determine some sufficient conditions on the lattice for when the essential commutant is norm generated by the projections it contains.