Unbounded Disjointness Preserving Linear Functionals

Let X be a locally compact Hausdorff space and C ₀(X) the Banach space of continuous functions on X vanishing at infinity. In this paper, we shall study unbounded disjointness preserving linear functionals on C ₀(X). They arise from prime ideals of C ₀(X), and we translate it into the cozero set ideal setting. In particular, every unbounded disjointness preserving linear functional of c ₀ can be constructed explicitly through an ultrafilter on complementary to a cozero set ideal. This ultrafilter method can be extended to produce many, but in general not all, such functionals on C ₀(X) for arbitrary X. We also make some remarks where C ₀(X) is replaced by a non-commutative C*-algebra.