Vol. 18, No. 2, 1966

Download this article
Download this article. For screen
For printing
Recent Issues
Vol. 331: 1
Vol. 330: 1  2
Vol. 329: 1  2
Vol. 328: 1  2
Vol. 327: 1  2
Vol. 326: 1  2
Vol. 325: 1  2
Vol. 324: 1  2
Online Archive
Volume:
Issue:
     
The Journal
About the journal
Ethics and policies
Peer-review process
 
Submission guidelines
Submission form
Editorial board
Officers
 
Subscriptions
 
ISSN 1945-5844 (electronic)
ISSN 0030-8730 (print)
 
Special Issues
Author index
To appear
 
Other MSP journals
Characterization of group algebras in terms of their translation operators

Frederick Paul Greenleaf

Vol. 18 (1966), No. 2, 243–276
Abstract

In this paper we will characterize those Banach algebras A which are isometric and isomorphic to the group algebra of some (possibly nonabelian) compact group. The central idea of this characterization is to study the group Gl(A) of translation operators which act on A; here a translation is any linear isometric map of A onto A such that T(xy) = (Tx)y for all x,y A.

We first give a simple characterization of an intermediate class of Banach algebra which includes all group algebras of compact groups and many other closely related algebras. This is the class of QCG algebras: those A isometric and isomorphic to an algebra of the form A = φ(L1(H)) M(H)∕N, where H is a compact group, N a weak closed two-sided ideal in M(H) = C(H), and φ : M(H) M(H)∕N is the canonical homomorphism (M(H)∕N is given the quotient norm). This characterization involves the following axiom on A.

Axiom (CA) If a1 then La(La : x ax) is a strong operator limit of convex sums of translations.

Any QCG algebra has a great number of finite dimensional two-sided ideals; those QCG algebras A which are group algebras are singled out by studying the representations gotten by letting Gl(A) act on these ideals. Examples are given of QCG algebras which are not the group algebra of any compact group.

Mathematical Subject Classification
Primary: 46.80
Secondary: 42.56
Milestones
Received: 13 November 1964
Published: 1 August 1966
Authors
Frederick Paul Greenleaf