Zero sums of idempotents in Banach algebras

The problem treated in this paper is the following. Let p1,..., pkbe idempotents in a Banach algebra B, and assume p1+...+pk=0. Does it follow that pj=0, j=1,..., k? For important classes of Banach algebras the answer turns out to be positive; in general, however, it is negative. A counterexample is given involving five nonzero bounded projections on infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert space. The number five is critical here: in Banach algebras nontrivial zero sums of four idempotents are impossible. In a purely algebraic context (no norm), the situation is different. There the critical number is four

Stratification of moduli spaces of Lie algebras, similar matrices and bilinear forms

In this paper, the authors apply a stratification of moduli spaces of complex Lie algebras to analyzing the moduli spaces of nxn matrices under scalar similarity and bilinear forms under the cogredient action. For similar matrices, we give a complete description of a stratification of the space by some very simple projective orbifolds of the form P^n/G, where G is a subgroup of the symmetric group sigma_{n+1} acting on P^n by permuting the projective coordinates. For bilinear forms, we give a similar stratification up to dimension 4