Partial Inner Product Spaces

Partial Inner Product (PIP) Spaces are ubiquitous, e.g. Rigged Hilbert spaces, chains of Hilbert or Banach spaces (such as the Lebesgue spaces Lp over the real line), etc. In fact, most functional spaces used in (quantum) physics and in signal processing are of this type. The book contains a systematic analysis of PIP spaces and operators defined on them. Numerous examples are described in detail and a large bibliography is provided. Finally, the last chapters cover the many applications of PIP spaces in physics and in signal/image processing, respectively. As such, the book will be useful both for researchers in mathematics and practitioners of these disciplines.

By definition, an indefinite inner product space is a real or complex vector space together with a symmetric (in the complex case: hermi tian) bilinear form prescribed on it so that the corresponding quadratic form assumes both positive and negative values. The most important special case arises when a Hilbert space is considered as an orthogonal direct sum of two subspaces, one equipped with the original inner prod uct, and the other with -1 times the original inner product. The subject first appeared thirty years ago in a paper of Dirac [1] on quantum field theory (d. also Pauli [lJ). Soon afterwards, Pontrja gin [1] gave the first mathematical treatment of an indefinite inner prod uct space. Pontrjagin was unaware of the investigations of Dirac and Pauli; on the other hand, he was inspired by a work of Sobolev [lJ, unpublished up to 1960, concerning a problem of mechanics. The attempts of Dirac and Pauli to apply the concept and elemen tary properties of indefinite inner product spaces to field theory have been renewed by several authors. At present it is not easy to judge which of their results will contribute to the final form of this part of physics. The following list of references should serve as a guide to the extensive literature: Bleuler [1], Gupta [lJ, Kallen and Pauli [lJ, Heisen berg [lJ-[4J, Bogoljubov, Medvedev and Polivanov [lJ, K.L. Nagy [lJ-[3], Berezin [lJ, Arons, Han and Sudarshan [1], Lee and Wick [1J.

In this volume, the contributing authors deal primarily with the interaction among problems of analysis and geometry in the context of inner product spaces. They present new and old characterizations of inner product spaces among normed linear spaces and the use of such spaces in various research problems of pure and applied mathematics. The methods employed are accessible to students familiar with normed linear spaces. Some of the theorems presented are at the same time simple and challenging.

Approach your problems from the right end It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is and begin with the answers. Then one day, that they can't see the problem. perhaps you will find the final question. G. K. Chesterton. The Scandal of Father 'The Hermit Oad in Crane Feathers' in R. Brown 'The point of a Pin'. van Gulik's The Chinese Maze Murders. Growing specialization and diversification have brought a host of monographs and textbooks on increasingly specialized topics. However, the "tree" of knowledge of mathematics and related fields does not grow only by putting forth new branches. It also happens, quite often in fact, that branches which were thought to be completely disparate are suddenly seen to be related. Further, the kind and level of sophistication of mathematics applied in various sciences has changed drastically in recent years: measure theory is used (non-trivially) in regional and theoretical economics; algebraic geometry interacts with physics; the Minkowsky lemma, coding theory and the structure of water meet one another in packing and covering theory; quantum fields, crystal defects and mathematical programming profit from homotopy theory; Lie algebras are relevant to filtering; and prediction and electrical engineering can use Stein spaces. And in addition to this there are such new emerging subdisciplines as "experimental mathematics", "CFD", "completely integrable systems", "chaos, synergetics and large-scale order", which are almost impossible to fit into the existing classification schemes. They draw upon widely different sections of mathematics.

Over the course of a scientific career spanning more than fifty years, Alex Grossmann (1930-2019) made many important contributions to a wide range of areas including, among others, mathematics, numerical analysis, physics, genetics, and biology. His lasting influence can be seen not only in his research and numerous publications, but also through the relationships he cultivated with his collaborators and students. This edited volume features chapters written by some of these colleagues, as well as researchers whom Grossmann’s work and way of thinking has impacted in a decisive way. Reflecting the diversity of his interests and their interdisciplinary nature, these chapters explore a variety of current topics in quantum mechanics, elementary particles, and theoretical physics; wavelets and mathematical analysis; and genomics and biology. A scientific biography of Grossmann, along with a more personal biography written by his son, serve as an introduction. Also included are the introduction to his PhD thesis and an unpublished paper coauthored by him. Researchers working in any of the fields listed above will find this volume to be an insightful and informative work.

Algebras of bounded operators are familiar, either as C*-algebras or as von Neumann algebras. A first generalization is the notion of algebras of unbounded operators (O*-algebras), mostly developed by the Leipzig school and in Japan (for a review, we refer to the monographs of K. Schmüdgen [1990] and A. Inoue [1998]). This volume goes one step further, by considering systematically partial *-algebras of unbounded operators (partial O*-algebras) and the underlying algebraic structure, namely, partial *-algebras. It is the first textbook on this topic. The first part is devoted to partial O*-algebras, basic properties, examples, topologies on them. The climax is the generalization to this new framework of the celebrated modular theory of Tomita-Takesaki, one of the cornerstones for the applications to statistical physics. The second part focuses on abstract partial *-algebras and their representation theory, obtaining again generalizations of familiar theorems (Radon-Nikodym, Lebesgue).

The present volume contains a collection of original research articles and expository contributions on recent developments in operator theory and its multifaceted applications. They cover a wide range of themes from the IWOTA 2010 conference held at the TU Berlin, Germany, including spectral theory, function spaces, mathematical system theory, evolution equations and semigroups, and differential and difference operators. The book encompasses new trends and various modern topics in operator theory, and serves as a useful source of information to mathematicians, scientists and engineers.