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

Arveson's extension theorem in *-algebras

Arveson's extension theorem asserts that B(H) is an injective object in the category of operator systems. Calling every self adjoint unital subspace of a unital *-algebra, a quasi operator system, we show that Arveson's theorem remains valid in the much larger category of quasi operator systems. This shows that Arveson's theorem as a non commutative extension of Hahn-Banach theorem, is of purely algebraic nature.Comment: 21 page

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

Multidimensional operator multipliers

We introduce multidimensional Schur multipliers and characterise them generalising well known results by Grothendieck and Peller. We define a multidimensional version of the two dimensional operator multipliers studied recently by Kissin and Shulman. The multidimensional operator multipliers are defined as elements of the minimal tensor product of several C*-algebras satisfying certain boundedness conditions. In the case of commutative C*-algebras, the multidimensional operator multipliers reduce to continuous multidimensional Schur multipliers. We show that the multipliers with respect to some given representations of the corresponding C*-algebras do not change if the representations are replaced by approximately equivalent ones. We establish a non-commutative and multidimensional version of the characterisations by Grothendieck and Peller which shows that universal operator multipliers can be obtained as certain weak limits of elements of the algebraic tensor product of the corresponding C*-algebras.Comment: A mistake in the previous versio

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

On the spectrum of multiplication operators

We study relations between spectra of two operators that are connected to each other through some intertwining conditions. As application we obtain new results on the spectra of multiplication operators on B(\cl H) relating it to the spectra of the restriction of the operators to the ideal $\mathcal C_2$ of Hilbert-Schmidt operators. We also solve one of the problems, posed in [B.Magajna, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc, 141 2013, 1349-1360] about the positivity of the spectrum of multiplication operators with positive operator coefficients when the coefficients on one side commute. Using the Wiener-Pitt phenomena we show that the spectrum of a multiplication operator with normal coefficients satisfying the Haagerup condition might be strictly larger than the spectrum of its restriction to $\mathcal C_2$.Comment: 12 pages, v2: corrected some typos, to appear in Methods of Funct. Anal. Topo

Completely compact Herz-Schur multipliers of dynamical systems

We prove that if $G$ is a discrete group and $(A,G,\alpha)$ is a C*-dynamical system such that the reduced crossed product $A\rtimes_{r,\alpha} G$ possesses property (SOAP) then every completely compact Herz-Schur $(A,G,\alpha)$-multiplier can be approximated in the completely bounded norm by Herz-Schur $(A,G,\alpha)$-multipliers of finite rank. As a consequence, if $G$ has the approximation property (AP) then the completely compact Herz-Schur multipliers of $A(G)$ coincide with the closure of $A(G)$ in the completely bounded multiplier norm. We study the class of invariant completely compact Herz-Schur multipliers of $A\rtimes_{r,\alpha} G$ and provide a description of this class in the case of the irrational rotation algebra.Comment: 22 page

Reduced synthesis in harmonic analysis and compact synthesis in operator theory

The notion of reduced synthesis in the context of harmonic analysis on general locally compact groups is introduced; in the classical situation of commutative groups, this notion means that a function f in the Fourier algebra is annihilated by any pseudofunction supported on f −1(0). A relationship between reduced synthesis and compact synthesis (i.e., the possibility of approximating compact operators by pseudointegral ones without increasing the support) is determined, which makes it possible to obtain new results both in operator theory and in harmonic analysis. Applications to the theory of linear operator equations are also given