Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo Series 2

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12215-018-0363-9

Maps preserving the inner local spectral radius zero of

generalized product of operators

Abdelali Achchi1

Received: 7 May 2018 / Accepted: 5 July 2018

© Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Let B (X ) be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on a complex Banach space X . For an
operator T ∈ B (X ), let ιT (x) denote the inner local spectral radius of T at any vector x ∈ X .
For an integer k ≥ 2, let (i 1 , . . . , i m ) be a finite sequence such that {i 1 , . . . , i m } = {1, . . . , k}
and at least one of the terms in (i 1 , . . . , i m ) appears exactly once. The generalized product
of k operators T1 , . . . , Tk ∈ B (X ) is defined by
T1 ∗ · · · ∗ Tk := Ti1 Ti2 . . . Tim ,
and includes the usual product T S and the triple product T ST . We show that a surjective
map ϕ on B (X ) satisfies
ιϕ(T1 )∗···∗ϕ(Tk ) (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT1 ∗···∗Tk (x) = 0
for all x ∈ X and all T1 , . . . , Tk ∈ B (X ) if and only if there exists a map γ : B (X ) → C\{0}
such that ϕ(T ) = γ (T )T for all T ∈ B (X ).

Keywords Nonlinear preservers · Analytic core of an operator · Inner local spectral radius ·
Generalized Products

Mathematics Subject Classification Primary 47B49; Secondary 47A10 · 47A11

1 Introduction and main results

Let X be an infinite-dimensional complex Banach space and B (X ) the algebra of all bounded
linear operators on X . The local resolvent ρT (x) of an operator T ∈ B (X ) at a point x ∈ X
is the union of all nonempty open subsets U of C for which there is an analytic function
f : U → X such that (T − λ) f (λ) = x, (λ ∈ U ). The local spectrum of T at x is defined
by
σT (x) := C \ ρT (x).

B Abdelali Achchi
achchi@gmail.com
1 Laboratory of Mathematics, Statistics and Applications, Department of Mathematics, Mathematical
Research Center of Rabat, Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed-V University in Rabat, Rabat, Morocco

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It is a closed (possibly empty) subset of σ (T ), the spectrum of T . In fact, σT (x)  = ∅ for all
nonzero vectors x in X precisely when T has the single-valued extension property (SVEP).
Recall that T is said to have SVEP provided that for every open subset U of C, the equation
(T −λ) f (λ) = 0, (λ ∈ U ), has no nontrivial analytic solution f . Every operator T ∈ B (X )
for which the interior of its point spectrum, σ p (T ), is empty enjoys this property.
For a positive scalar r , let D(0, r ) (resp. D(0, r )) denotes the closed (resp. the open) disc
centered at the origin with radius r , and for a closed subset F of C and an operator T ∈ B (X ),
the subspace
XT (F) := {x ∈ X : (T − λ) f (λ) = x has an analytic solution f on C \ F}

Is the so-called glocal spectral subspace of T .

Recall that the local spectral radius of T at x ∈ X is defined by
r T (x) := lim sup T n (x) 1/n
,
n→∞

and coincides with

r T (x) = inf{r ≥ 0 : x ∈ XT (D(0, r ))}
see [18, Proposition 3.3.13]. Analogously, the inner local spectral radius, ιT (x), of T at
x ∈ X is defined by
ιT (x) := sup{r ≥ 0 : x ∈ XT (C \ D(0, r ))},
and coincides with the minimum modulus of σT (x) provided that T has the SVEP; see[20] .
Recall also that the analytical core of an operator T , denoted by K(T ), is defined as the set of
all x ∈ X for which there exist δ > 0 and a sequence (xn ) ⊂ X such that x0 = x,T xn+1 = xn
and xn ≤ δ n x , for all n ≥ 0. It is a T -invariant subspace, generally non closed. The
books by Aiena [3] and by Laursen and Neumann [18] provide an excellent exposition as
well as a rich bibliography of the local spectral theory.
Maps preserving certain spectral and local spectral quantities of double or triple product of
operators or matrices were studied by many authors; see for instance [1,4,5,7,9–14]. The
problem of describing linear or additive maps on B (X ) preserving the local spectra has been
initiated by Bourhim and Ransford in[11], and continued by several authors; see for instance
[5,6] and the references therein. Bourhim and Ransford [11] proved that the only additive
map ϕ : B (X ) −→ B (X ) satisfying
σϕ(T ) (x) = σT (x) (T ∈ B (X ), x ∈ X )
is the identity. El Kettani and Benbouziane [15] described surjective additive maps on B (X )
preserving operators of inner local spectral radius zero at points of X . He showed that a
surjective additive map ϕ on B (X ) satisfies
ιϕ(T ) (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT (x) = 0,
for all x ∈ X and T ∈ B (X ) if and only if there is a nonzero scalar c ∈ C such that
ϕ(T ) = cT for all T ∈ B (X ). This result has been extended by Jari [17] where it is shown
that if ϕ is a surjective (not necessarily linear) map on B (X ) that satisfies
ιϕ(T )−ϕ(S) (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT −S (x) = 0,
for every x ∈ X and T , S ∈ B (X ), then there is a nonzero scalar c ∈ C and an operator
R ∈ B (X ) such that ϕ(T ) = cT + R for all T ∈ B (X ). Elhodaibi and Jaatit [14] extended

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the result in [17] to maps ϕ that are not surjective. To have a good chronological handling of
the preserving problems, see the excellent survey by Bourhim and Mashreghi [8].
For an integer k ≥ 2, let (i 1 , . . . , i m ) be a finite sequence such that {i 1 , . . . , i m } =
{1, . . . , k} and at least one of the terms in (i 1 , . . . , i m ) appears exactly once. The generalized
product of k operators T1 , . . . , Tk ∈ B (X ) is defined by
T1 ∗ · · · ∗ Tk := Ti1 Ti2 . . . Tim ,
and includes the usual product T S and the triple product T ST . Note that maps preserving
certain spectral and local spectral quantities of the generalized product has been considered
by many authors; see for instance [2,16,21].
The main result of this paper is the following theorem.

Theorem 1.1 Let ϕ : B (X ) −→ B (X ) be a surjective map. Then the following statements

are equivalent.
(a) For every T1 , . . . , Tk ∈ B (X ) and x ∈ X , we have
ιϕ(T1 )∗···∗ϕ(Tk ) (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT1 ∗···∗Tk (x) = 0. (1.1)
(b) For every T1 , . . . , Tk ∈ B (X ) we have
K(ϕ(T1 ) ∗ · · · ∗ ϕ(Tk )) = K(T1 ∗ · · · ∗ Tk ). (1.2)
(c) There is a map γ : B (X ) → C \ {0} such that ϕ(T ) = γ (T )T for all T ∈ B (X ).

This paper is divided into three sections. In Sect. 2, we collect some auxiliary lemmas and
summarize some basic properties of the analytical core of an operator T ∈ B (X ). We also
give a characterization of rank one operators in term of the analytical core of generalized
product of operators. In Sect. 3, we present the proof of the main result.

2 Preliminaries

Let X ∗ be the topological dual space of X and denote N (X ) the subset of all nilpotent
operators in B (X ). For a positive integer n, let Fn (X ) be the set of operators in B (X ) of
rank at most n. For x ∈ X and f ∈ X ∗ , let x ⊗ f be the operator of rank at most one defined
by (x ⊗ f )(z) = f (z)x (z ∈ X ). We denote by span {x} the subspace spanned by x. For any
operator T ∈ B (X ), let ker(T ) be the kernel of T and ran(T ) be its range. For a subspace Y
of X , denote by dim(Y ) its dimension .
The analytical core of a rank one operator is given by

{0} if f (x) = 0,
K(x ⊗ f ) = (2.1)
span {x} if f (x)  = 0.
The following Lemma contains some properties of the analytical core and the inner local
spectral radius of an operator T ∈ B (X ). These are quoted from [3,18,20].

Lemma 2.1 For an operator T ∈ B (X ) and a vector x ∈ X . Then the following statements
hold.
(a) K (T ) = {x ∈ X : 0 ∈ / σT (x)}.
(b) K(λT ) = K(T ) for all nonzero scalar λ ∈ C.
(c) if T is quasi-nilpotent then K(T ) = {0}.

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(d) ker(T − λ) ⊂ K(T ) for all nonzero scalar λ ∈ C.

(e) ιT (x) = 0 if and only if 0 ∈ σT (x).

The next Lemma gives necessary and sufficient conditions for two operators to be linearly
dependent in terms of the analytical core.
Lemma 2.2 Let A and B in B (X ) \ {0}, and r and s two nonnegative integers such that
r + s ≥ 1. The following statements are equivalent.
(a) A = α B for some nonzero scalar α ∈ C.
(b) K(T r AT s ) = K(T r BT s ) for all operators T ∈ B (X ).
(c) K(P r A P s ) = K(P r B P s ) for all idempotent rank one operators P ∈ B (X ).

Proof We only need to show that the implication (c) ⇒ (a) holds. For this, assume that
K(P r A P s ) = K(P r B P s ) for all idempotent rank one operators P ∈ B (X ). Fix an idem-
potent rank one operators P ∈ B (X ) and note that
P r A P s ∈ N (X ) ⇐⇒ K(P r A P s ) = {0}
⇐⇒ K(P r B P s ) = {0}
⇐⇒ P r B P s ∈ N (X ).

Given two operators S and T in B (X ), we note that (T S)n+1 = T (ST )n S for all positive
integers n, and then T S ∈ N (X ) if and only if ST ∈ N (X ). Hence,
A P = A P r +s ∈ N (X ) ⇐⇒ B P r +s = B P ∈ N (X ).
Thus, by [19, Lemma 2.13], A and B are linearly dependent. The proof is therefore complete.



Now, we characterize rank one operators by the analytical core of generalized product of
operators.

Lemma 2.3 Let r and s be nonnegative integers such that r + s ≥ 1. For a nonzero operator
R ∈ B (X ), the following statements are equivalent.
(a) R is a rank one operator.
(b) dim (K(T r RT s )) ≤ 1 for all T ∈ B (X ).

Proof If R is a rank one operator and T ∈ B (X ) is an arbitrary operator, then T r RT s has

rank at most one. Therefore, by (2.1), we have
dim (K(T r RT s )) ≤ 1,
and the implication (a) ⇒ (b) is established. Conversely, assume that R has rank at
least two. Let us show that there exists T ∈ B (X ) such that dim (K(T r RT s )) ≥ 2. Since
rank(R) ≥ 2, let y1 , y2 be two linearly independent vectors in the range of R, and x 1 , x2 in
X such that Rx1 = y1 and Rx2 = y2 . Assume that s  = 0 and r  = 0. Since X has infinite
dimension, we can find linearly independent vectors
z 0 , z 1 , . . . , z s , z s+1 , . . . , z s+r −1 , w0 , w1 , . . . , ws , . . . , ws+r −1
with z s := y1 and ws := y2 . Now, we can find a finite rank operator T ∈ B (X ) such that
T z s−1 = x1 , T z s+r −1 = z 0 , T ws−1 = x2 , T ws+r −1 = w0

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and for i ∈ {0, 1, . . . , r + s − 1} \ {s − 1, r + s − 1}

T z i = z i+1 and T wi = wi+1 .
Note that T r RT s z 0 = z 0 and T r RT s w0 = w0 , and Lemma 2.1-(d), tells us that z 0 , w0 ∈
ker(T r RT s − I ) ⊂ K(T r RT s ). Therefore, dim (K(T r RT s )) ≥ 2. This shows that the
implication (b) ⇒ (a) always holds in case both r and s are positive integers.
To finish, we may and will assume that s = 0 as the case when r = 0 is similar. Then
choose linearly independent vectors z 0 , z 1 , . . . , zr −1 , w0 , w1 , . . . , wr −1 in X with z 0 = y1 ,
w0 = y2 . Thus, there exists a finite rank operator T ∈ B (X ) such that T z i = z i+1 for
i ∈ {0, r − 2} and T zr −1 = x1 and T wi = wi+1 for i ∈ {0, r − 2} and T wr −1 = x2 . We
have T r Rx1 = x1 and T r Rx2 = x2 . Hence, x1 , x2 ∈ K(T r R) and dim (K(T r R)) ≥ 2. This
establishes the implication in this case too and the proof is then complete. 


3 Proof of Theorem 1.1

Let S and T be two operators in B (X ), and set Ti p = S and Ti j = T for all j  = p with i p
is the term which appears exactly once in (i 1 , . . . , i m ) . Note that T1 ∗ · · · ∗ Tk = T r ST s for
some nonnegative integers r and s such that r + s = m − 1 ≥ 1. Therefore if ϕ is a maps
satisfies (1.1), then
ιϕ(T )r ϕ(S)ϕ(T )s (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT r ST s (x) = 0,
for any x ∈ X . Clearly Theorem 1.1 is an immediate consequence of the following result.

Theorem 3.1 Let r and s be two nonnegative integers with r +s ≥ 1 and ϕ : B (X ) −→ B (X )

be a surjective map. Then the following statements are equivalent.
(a) For every T , S ∈ B (X ) and x ∈ X , we have
ιϕ(T )r ϕ(S)ϕ(T )s (x) = 0 ⇐⇒ ιT r ST s (x) = 0. (3.1)
(b) For every T , S ∈ B (X ) we have
K(ϕ(T )r ϕ(S)ϕ(T )s ) = K(T r ST s ). (3.2)
(c) There is a map γ : B (X ) → C \ {0} such that ϕ(T ) = γ (T )T for all T ∈ B (X ).

Proof The equivalence (a) ⇐⇒ (b) can be easily obtained by using Lemma 2.1-(a) and (e),
while the implication (c) ⇒ (b) is straightforward. It remains to show that (b) ⇒ (c).
The proof breaks down into several steps.
Step 1. For any A ∈ B (X ), we have ϕ(A) = 0 if and only if A = 0.
Assume by the way of contradiction that ϕ(0)  = 0. Then there exists a nonzero vector
x ∈ X such that ϕ(0)x  = 0. Hence there is a linear functional f ∈ X ∗ such that f (ϕ(0)x)  = 0
and f (x)  = 0. Since ϕ is surjective, there is an operator T ∈ B (X ) such that ϕ(T ) = x ⊗ f
and therefore we have
{0} = K(T r 0T s )
= K(ϕ(T )r ϕ(0)ϕ(T )s )
= K((x ⊗ f )r ϕ(0)(x ⊗ f )s ).
Observe that, since x ⊗ f is a rank one operator, we have
(x ⊗ f )r ϕ(0)(x ⊗ f )s ∈ N (X ) ⇐⇒ ϕ(0)(x ⊗ f )s+r ∈ N (X ).

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Therefore
{0} = K(ϕ(0)(x ⊗ f )s+r )
= K( f (x)r +s−1 ϕ(0)x ⊗ f )
= K(ϕ(0)x ⊗ f )
= span {ϕ(0)x}.

This is a contradiction and then ϕ(0) = 0.

Next, assume that ϕ(A) = 0 for certain A ∈ B (X ), and let us show that A = 0. If not,
there exists a nonzero vector x ∈ X such that Ax  = 0, and then there exists a linear functional
f ∈ X ∗ such that f (Ax)  = 0 and f (x)  = 0. For T := x ⊗ f , we have

{0} = K(ϕ(T )r ϕ(A)ϕ(T )s ) = K(T r AT s ),

and T r AT s ∈ N (X ). Then AT r +s ∈ N (X ), and

{0} = K(AT s+r )

= K(A(x ⊗ f )s+r )
= K( f (x)r +s−1 Ax ⊗ f )
= K(Ax ⊗ f )
= span {Ax}.

This contradiction shows that A = 0.

Step 2. ϕ preserves rank one operators in both directions.
Let R ∈ B (X ) be a rank one operator. By Step 1, we have ϕ(R)  = 0. Note that
dim (K(ϕ(T )r ϕ(R)ϕ(T )s )) = dim (K(T r RT s )) ≤ 1 for all T ∈ B (X ). As ϕ is surjec-
tive, Lemma 2.3 tells us that ϕ(R) is a rank one operator. Conversely, assume that ϕ(R)
is rank one operator for a given operator R ∈ B (X ), and note that R  = 0, by Step 1.
Again Lemma 2.3 implies that dim (K(ϕ(T )r ϕ(R)ϕ(T )s )) ≤ 1 for all T ∈ B (X ). Therefore
dim (K(T r RT s )) ≤ 1 for all T ∈ B (X ). Once more Lemma 2.3 entails that R has rank one.
Step 3. For every rank one idempotent operator P ∈ B (X ), there is a nonzero scalar
α P ∈ C such that ϕ(P) = α P P.
Let x ∈ X and f ∈ X ∗ such that f (x) = 1. By Step 2, there exist y ∈ X and g ∈ X ∗
such that ϕ(x ⊗ f ) = y ⊗ g. Since x ⊗ f is a rank one idempotent operator, we get

span {x} = K(x ⊗ f ))

= K((x ⊗ f )r (x ⊗ f )(x ⊗ f )s )
= K(ϕ(x ⊗ f )r ϕ(x ⊗ f )ϕ(x ⊗ f )s )
= K(g(y)r +s y ⊗ g).

This shows that g(y)  = 0 and span {y} = K(g(y)r +s y ⊗ g) = span {x}. Therefore, y = αx
for a nonzero scalar α ∈ C. Without loss of generality, we may and shall assume that x = y,
and then ϕ(x ⊗ f ) = x ⊗ gx, f for certain linear functional gx, f ∈ X ∗ . We claim that f and
gx, f are linearly dependent. If not, take z ∈ X such that f (z) = 1 and gx, f (z) = 0. Just as
before, one shows that there exists a linear functional gz, f ∈ X ∗ such that ϕ(z⊗ f ) = z⊗gz, f .
Observe that (z ⊗ gz, f )r (x ⊗ gx, f )(z ⊗ gz, f )s is nilpotent and (z ⊗ f )r (x ⊗ f )(z ⊗ f )s is
idempotent. Then by (2.1), we have

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{0} = K((z ⊗ gz, f )r (x ⊗ gx, f )(z ⊗ gz, f )s )

= K(ϕ(z ⊗ f )r ϕ(x ⊗ f )ϕ(z ⊗ f )s )
= K((z ⊗ f )r (x ⊗ f )(z ⊗ f )s )
 {0}.

This contradiction shows that gx, f and f are linearly dependent, and ϕ(x ⊗ f ) = α(x ⊗ f )
for certain nonzero α ∈ C. This completes the proof of this step.
Step 4. ϕ takes the desired form.
For every rank one idempotent operator P ∈ B (X ) and every T ∈ B (X ) \ {0}, we have

K(P r T P s ) = K(ϕ(P)r ϕ(T )ϕ(P)s )

= K(αrP+s P r ϕ(T )P s )
= K(P r ϕ(T )P s ).

By Lemma 2.2 and Step 1, we see that ϕ(T ) and T are linearly dependent. Therefore, there
exists a map γ : B (X ) → C \ {0} such that ϕ(T ) = γ (T )T for all T ∈ B (X ). The proof is
then complete. 


Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the referee for his/her careful reading of the manuscript, and some
helpful comments.

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