Schur and operator multipliers

Schur multipliers were introduced by Schur in the early 20th century and have since then found a considerable number of applications in Analysis and enjoyed an intensive development. Apart from the beauty of the subject in itself, sources of interest in them were connections with Perturbation Theory, Harmonic Analysis, the Theory of Operator Integrals and others. Advances in the quantisation of Schur multipliers were recently made by Kissin and Shulman. The aim of the present article is to summarise a part of the ideas and results in the theory of Schur and operator multipliers. We start with the classical Schur multipliers defined by Schur and their characterisation by Grothendieck, and make our way through measurable multipliers studied by Peller and Spronk, operator multipliers defined by Kissin and Shulman and, finally, multidimensional Schur and operator multipliers developed by Juschenko and the authors. We point out connections of the area with Harmonic Analysis and the Theory of Operator Integrals

Completely bounded bimodule maps and spectral synthesis

We initiate the study of the completely bounded multipliers of the Haagerup tensor product $A(G)\otimes_{\rm h} A(G)$ of two copies of the Fourier algebra $A(G)$ of a locally compact group $G$. If $E$ is a closed subset of $G$ we let $E^{\sharp} = \{(s,t) : st\in E\}$ and show that if $E^{\sharp}$ is a set of spectral synthesis for $A(G)\otimes_{\rm h} A(G)$ then $E$ is a set of local spectral synthesis for $A(G)$. Conversely, we prove that if $E$ is a set of spectral synthesis for $A(G)$ and $G$ is a Moore group then $E^{\sharp}$ is a set of spectral synthesis for $A(G)\otimes_{\rm h} A(G)$. Using the natural identification of the space of all completely bounded weak* continuous $VN(G)'$-bimodule maps with the dual of $A(G)\otimes_{\rm h} A(G)$, we show that, in the case $G$ is weakly amenable, such a map leaves the multiplication algebra of $L^{\infty}(G)$ invariant if and only if its support is contained in the antidiagonal of $G$.Comment: 44 page

Reduced spectral synthesis and compact operator synthesis

We introduce and study the notion of reduced spectral synthesis, which unifies the concepts of spectral synthesis and uniqueness in locally compact groups. We exhibit a number of examples and prove that every non-discrete locally compact group with an open abelian subgroup has a subset that fails reduced spectral synthesis. We introduce compact operator synthesis as an operator algebraic counterpart of this notion and link it with other exceptional sets in operator algebra theory, studied previously. We show that a closed subset $E$ of a second countable locally compact group $G$ satisfies reduced local spectral synthesis if and only if the subset $E^* = \{(s,t) : ts^{-1}\in E\}$ of $G\times G$ satisfies compact operator synthesis. We apply our results to questions about the equivalence of linear operator equations with normal commuting coefficients on Schatten $p$-classes.Comment: 43 page

Closable Multipliers

Let (X,m) and (Y,n) be standard measure spaces. A function f in $L^\infty(X\times Y,m\times n)$ is called a (measurable) Schur multiplier if the map $S_f$, defined on the space of Hilbert-Schmidt operators from $L_2(X,m)$ to $L_2(Y,n)$ by multiplying their integral kernels by f, is bounded in the operator norm. The paper studies measurable functions f for which $S_f$ is closable in the norm topology or in the weak* topology. We obtain a characterisation of w*-closable multipliers and relate the question about norm closability to the theory of operator synthesis. We also study multipliers of two special types: if f is of Toeplitz type, that is, if f(x,y)=h(x-y), x,y in G, where G is a locally compact abelian group, then the closability of f is related to the local inclusion of h in the Fourier algebra A(G) of G. If f is a divided difference, that is, a function of the form (h(x)-h(y))/(x-y), then its closability is related to the "operator smoothness" of the function h. A number of examples of non-closable, norm closable and w*-closable multipliers are presented.Comment: 35 page