Contractions Satisfying the Absolute Value Property

Let B(H) denote the algebra of operators on a complex Hilbert space H, and let U denote the class of operators which satisfy the absolute value condition . It is proved that if is a contraction, then either A has a nontrivial invariant subspace or A is a proper contraction and the nonnegative operator is strongly stable. A Putnam-Fuglede type commutativity theorem is proved for contractions A in , and it is shown that if normal subspaces of . It is proved that if are reducing, then every compact operator in the intersection of the weak closure of the range of the derivation with the commutant of A* is quasinilpotent.