Extending an operator from a Hilbert space to a larger Hilbert space,so as to reduce its spectrum

In our earlier paper 1] we showed that given any elementx of a commutative unital Banach algebraA, there is an extensionA′ ofA such that the spectrum ofx inA′ is precisely the essential spectrum ofx inA. In 2], we showed further that ifT is a continuous linear operator on a Banach spaceX, then there is an extensionY ofX such thatT extends continuously to an operatorT ⁻ onY, and the spectrum ofT ⁻ is precisely the approximate point spectrum ofT. In this paper we take the second of these results, and show further that ifX is a Hilbert space then we can ensure thatY is also a Hilbert space; so any operatorT on a Hilbert spaceX is the restriction to one copy ofX of an operatorT ⁻ onX ⊕X, whose spectrum is precisely the approximate point spectrum ofT. This result is “best possible” in the sense that if isany extension to a larger Banach space of an operatorT, it is a standard exercise that the approximate point spectrum ofT is contained in the spectrum of .