### Souvenirs from Haifa

The “Multivariable operator theory workshop at the Technion, on occasion of Baruch Solel’s 65th birthday”, is over. Overall I think it was successful, and I enjoyed meeting old and new friend, and seeing the plan materialize. Everything ran very smoothly – mostly thanks to the Center for Mathematical Sciences and in particular Maya Shpigelman. It was a pleasure to have an occasion to thank Baruch, and I was proud to see my colleagues acknowledge Baruch’s contribution and wish him the best.

If you are curious about the talks, here is the book of abstracts. Most of the presentations can be found at the bottom of the workshop webpage. Here is a bigger version of the photo.

I will not blog about the workshop any further – I don’t feel like I participated as a mathematician. I miss being a regular participant! Luckily I don’t have to wait long: Next week, I am going to Athens to participate in the Sixth Summer School in Operator Theory in Athens.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 7 (von Neumann algebras as dual spaces, various topologies)

Until this point in the course, we concentrated on constructions of von Neumann algebras, examples, and properties of von Neumann algebras as algebras. In this lecture we turn to study subtler topological and Banach-space theoretic aspects of von Neumann algebras. We begin by showing that every von Neumann algebra is the Banach-space dual of a Banach space. For this to have any hope of being true, it must be true for the von Neumann algebra $B(H)$; we therefore look there first.

(The reference for this lecture is mostly Takesaki, Vol. I, Chapters 2 and 3).

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 6 (tensor products of Hilbert spaces and vN algebras; the GNS representation, the hyperfinite II_1 factor)

In this lecture we will introduce tensor products of Hilbert spaces. This construction is very useful for exhibiting various operators, and, in particular, it will enable us to introduce new von Neumann algebras. In particular, we will construct the so called hyperfinite $II_1$ factor.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 5 (comparison of projections and classification into types of von Neumann algebras)

In the previous lecture we discussed the group von Neumann algebras, and we saw that they can never be isomorphic to $B(H)$. There is something fundamentally different about these algebras, and this was manifested by the existence of a trace. von Neumann algebras with traces are special, and the existence or non-existence of a trace can be used to classify von Neumann algebras, into rather broad “types”. In this lecture we will study the theory of Murray and von Neumann on the comparison of projections and the use of this theory to classify von Neumann algebras into “types”. We will also see how traces (or generalized traces) fit in. (For preparing these notes, I used Takesaki (Vol I) and Kadison-Ringrose (Vol. II).)

Most of the time we will stick to the assumption that all Hilbert spaces appearing are separable. This will only be needed at one or two spots (can you spot them?).

In addition to “Exercises”, I will start suggesting “Projects”. These projects might require investing a significant amount of time (a student is not expected to choose more than one project).

### The preface to “A First Course in Functional Analysis”

I am not yet done being excited about my new book, A First Course in Functional Analysis. I will use my blog to advertise my book, one last time. This post is for all the people who might wonder: “why did you think that anybody needs a new book on functional analysis?” Good question! The answer is contained in the preface to the book, which is pasted below the fold.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 4 (group von Neumann algebras)

As the main reference for this lecture we use (more-or-less) Section 1.3 in the notes by Anantharaman and Popa (here is a link to the notes on Popa’s homepage).

As for exercises:  Read the rest of this entry »

### Our new baby book

Finally, after a long delay, a package arrived containing some hard copies of my book.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 3 (some more generalities, projection constructions, commutative von Neumann algebras)

In this lecture we will describe some projection construction in von Neumann algebras, and we will classify commutative von Neumann algebras.

So far (the first two lectures and in this one), the references I used for preparing these notes are Conway (A Course in Operator Theory) Davidson (C*-algebras by Example), Kadison-Ringrose (Fundamentals of the Theory of Operator Algebras, Vol .I), and the notes on Sorin Popa’s homepage. But since I sometimes insist on putting the pieces together in a different order, the reader should be on the look out for mistakes.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, Lecture 2 (Definitions, the double commutant theorem, etc.)

In this second lecture we start a systematic study of von Neumann algebras.

### Introduction to von Neumann algebras, addendum to Lecture 1 (solution of Exercise B: the norm of a selfadjoint operator)

One of the challenges I had in preparing this course, was to find a quick route to the modern theory that is different from the standard modern route, in order to save time and be able to reach significant results and examples in the limited time of a one semester course. A main issue was to avoid the (beautiful, beautiful, beautiful) Gelfand theory of commutative Banach and C*-algebras, and base everything on the spectral theorem for a single selfadjoint operator (which is significantly simpler than the one for normal operators). In the previous lecture, I stated Exercise B, which gave some important properties of the spectrum of a selfadjoint operator. Since my whole treatment is based on this, I felt that for completeness I should give the details.

Spoiler alert: If you are a student in the course and you plan to submit the solution of this exercise, then you shouldn’t read the rest of this post.