Nuclear operator

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In mathematics, nuclear operators are an important class of linear operators introduced by Alexander Grothendieck in his doctoral dissertation [1] . Nuclear operators are intimately tied to the projective tensor product of two topological vector spaces (TVSs). [2]

Contents

Preliminaries and notation

Throughout let X,Y, and Z be topological vector spaces (TVSs) and L : X → Y be a linear operator (no assumption of continuity is made unless otherwise stated).

In a Hilbert space, positive compact linear operators, say L : H → H have a simple spectral decomposition discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by Fredholm and F. Riesz: [5]

There is a sequence of positive numbers, decreasing and either finite or else converging to 0, and a sequence of nonzero finite dimensional subspaces of H (i = 1, 2, ) with the following properties: (1) the subspaces are pairwise orthogonal; (2) for every i and every , ; and (3) the orthogonal of the subspace spanned by is equal to the kernel of L. [5]

Notation for topologies

A canonical tensor product as a subspace of the dual of Bi(X, Y)

Let X and Y be vector spaces (no topology is needed yet) and let Bi(X, Y) be the space of all bilinear maps defined on and going into the underlying scalar field.

For every , let be the canonical linear form on Bi(X, Y) defined by for every u ∈ Bi(X, Y). This induces a canonical map defined by , where denotes the algebraic dual of Bi(X, Y). If we denote the span of the range of 𝜒 by X ⊗ Y then it can be shown that X ⊗ Y together with 𝜒 forms a tensor product of X and Y (where x ⊗ y := 𝜒(x, y)). This gives us a canonical tensor product of X and Y.

If Z is any other vector space then the mapping Li(X ⊗ Y; Z) → Bi(X, Y; Z) given by u ↦ u ∘ 𝜒 is an isomorphism of vector spaces. In particular, this allows us to identify the algebraic dual of X ⊗ Y with the space of bilinear forms on X × Y. [6] Moreover, if X and Y are locally convex topological vector spaces (TVSs) and if X ⊗ Y is given the π-topology then for every locally convex TVS Z, this map restricts to a vector space isomorphism from the space of continuous linear mappings onto the space of continuous bilinear mappings. [7] In particular, the continuous dual of X ⊗ Y can be canonically identified with the space B(X, Y) of continuous bilinear forms on X × Y; furthermore, under this identification the equicontinuous subsets of B(X, Y) are the same as the equicontinuous subsets of . [7]

Nuclear operators between Banach spaces

There is a canonical vector space embedding defined by sending to the map

Assuming that X and Y are Banach spaces, then the map has norm (to see that the norm is , note that

, so that ).

Thus I has a continuous extension to a map . It is known that this map is not necessarily injective. [8] The range of this map is denoted by and its elements are called nuclear operators. [9]

is TVS-isomorphic to and the norm on this quotient space, when transferred to elements of via the induced map , is called the trace-norm and is denoted by . Explicitly,[ clarification needed explicitly or especially?] if is a nuclear operator then .

Characterization

Suppose that X and Y are Banach spaces and that is a continuous linear operator.

Properties

Let X and Y be Banach spaces and let be a continuous linear operator.

Nuclear operators between Hilbert spaces

Nuclear automorphisms of a Hilbert space are called trace class operators.

Let X and Y be Hilbert spaces and let N : X → Y be a continuous linear map. Suppose that where R : X → X is the square-root of and U : X → Y is such that is a surjective isometry. Then N is a nuclear map if and only if R is a nuclear map; hence, to study nuclear maps between Hilbert spaces it suffices to restrict one's attention to positive self-adjoint operators R. [13]

Characterizations

Let X and Y be Hilbert spaces and let N : X → Y be a continuous linear map whose absolute value is R : X → X. The following are equivalent:

  1. N : X → Y is nuclear.
  2. R : X → X is nuclear. [14]
  3. R : X → X is compact and is finite, in which case . [14]
    • Here, is the trace of R and it is defined as follows: Since R is a continuous compact positive operator, there exists a (possibly finite) sequence of positive numbers with corresponding non-trivial finite-dimensional and mutually orthogonal vector spaces such that the orthogonal (in H) of is equal to (and hence also to ) and for all k, for all ; the trace is defined as .
  4. is nuclear, in which case . [11]
  5. There are two orthogonal sequences in X and in Y, and a sequence in such that for all , . [14]
  6. N : X → Y is an integral map. [15]

Nuclear operators between locally convex spaces

Suppose that U is a convex balanced closed neighborhood of the origin in X and B is a convex balanced bounded Banach disk in Y with both X and Y locally convex spaces. Let and let be the canonical projection. One can define the auxiliary Banach space with the canonical map whose image, , is dense in as well as the auxiliary space normed by and with a canonical map being the (continuous) canonical injection. Given any continuous linear map one obtains through composition the continuous linear map ; thus we have an injection and we henceforth use this map to identify as a subspace of . [9]

Definition: Let X and Y be Hausdorff locally convex spaces. The union of all as U ranges over all closed convex balanced neighborhoods of the origin in X and B ranges over all bounded Banach disks in Y, is denoted by and its elements are call nuclear mappings of X into Y. [9]

When X and Y are Banach spaces, then this new definition of nuclear mapping is consistent with the original one given for the special case where X and Y are Banach spaces.

Sufficient conditions for nuclearity

Characterizations

Let X and Y be Hausdorff locally convex spaces and let be a continuous linear operator.

Properties

The following is a type of Hahn-Banach theorem for extending nuclear maps:

Let X and Y be Hausdorff locally convex spaces.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Nuclear operator - Encyclopedia of Mathematics". encyclopediaofmath.org. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
  2. ↑ "Produits Tensoriels Topologiques et Espaces Nucléaires". pubs.ams.org. Retrieved 2026-08-24.
  3. ↑ Trèves 2006, p. 488.
  4. 1 2 3 Trèves 2006, p. 483.
  5. 1 2 Trèves 2006, p. 490.
  6. ↑ Schaefer & Wolff 1999, p. 92.
  7. 1 2 Schaefer & Wolff 1999, p. 93.
  8. 1 2 3 Schaefer & Wolff 1999, p. 98.
  9. 1 2 3 Trèves 2006, pp. 478–479.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Trèves 2006, pp. 481–483.
  11. 1 2 3 Trèves 2006, p. 484.
  12. ↑ Trèves 2006, pp. 483–484.
  13. ↑ Trèves 2006, pp. 488–492.
  14. 1 2 3 Trèves 2006, pp. 492–494.
  15. ↑ Trèves 2006, pp. 502–508.
  16. ↑ Trèves 2006, pp. 479–481.
  17. 1 2 Schaefer & Wolff 1999, p. 100.
  18. 1 2 Trèves 2006, p. 485.

Bibliography