2017/11/29 by Albrecht Boettcher, Boettcher, Albrecht, Ilya M. Spitkovsky +2
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #47A53 #47A60 #47B15 #47C15 #47L15 #FOS: Mathematics #Functional Analysis (math.FA) #Matrix Theory and Algorithms #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #math.FA #msc:47A53 #msc:47A60 #msc:47B15 #msc:47C15 #msc:47L15
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1711.11024
15 pages
arxiv created 2017/11/29 · openalex publication_date 2017/11/29 · arxiv updated 2017/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper is the written version of our talk (presented by the second author) at the IWOTA in Chemnitz in August 2017. The meta theorem of the paper is that Halmos' two projections theorem is something like Robert Sheckley's Answerer: no question about the W*- and C*-algebras generated by two orthogonal projections will go unanswered, provided the question is not foolish. An alternative approach to questions about two orthogonal projections makes use of the supersymmetry equality introduced by Avron, Seiler, and Simon. A noteworthy insight of the paper reveals that the supersymmetric approach is nothing but Halmos in different language and hence an equivalent Answerer.