operator theory

This volume is devoted to Joseph A. (Joe) Ball’s contributions to operator theory and its applications and in celebration of his seventieth birthday.Joe Ball’s career spans over four and a half decades, starting with his work on model theory and related topics for non-contractions and operators on multiply connected domains. Later on, more applied operator theory themes appeared in his work, involving factorization and interpolation for operator-valued functions, with extensive applications in system and control theory. He has worked on nonlinear control, time-varying systems and, more recently, on multidimensional systems and noncommutative H∞-theory on the unit ball and polydisk, and more general domains, and these are only the main themes in his vast oeuvre.Fourteen research papers constitute the core of this volume, written by mathematicians who have collaborated with Joe or have been influenced by his vast mathematical work. A curriculum vitae, a publications list and a list of Joe Ball’s PhD students are included in this volume, as well as personal reminiscences by colleagues and friends. Contributions by Yu. M. Arlinskii, S. Hassi, M. Augat, J. W. Helton, I. Klep, S. McCullough, S. Balasubramanian, U. Wijesooriya, N. Cohen, Q. Fang, S. Gorai, J. Sarkar, G. J. Groenewald, S. ter Horst, J. Jaftha, A. C. M. Ran, M.A. Kaashoek, F. van Schagen, A. Kheifets, Z. A. Lykova, N. J. Young, A. E. Ajibo, R. T. W. Martin, A. Ramanantoanina, M.-J. Y. Ou, H. J. Woerdeman, A. van der Schaft, A. Tannenbaum, T. T. Georgiou, J. O. Deasy and L. Norton.

This book gives a gentle but up-to-date introduction into the theory of operator semigroups (or linear dynamical systems), which can be used with great success to describe the dynamics of complicated phenomena arising in many applications. Positivity is a property which naturally appears in physical, chemical, biological or economic processes. It adds a beautiful and far reaching mathematical structure to the dynamical systems and operators describing these processes. In the first part, the finite dimensional theory in a coordinate-free way is developed, which is difficult to find in literature. This is a good opportunity to present the main ideas of the Perron-Frobenius theory in a way which can be used in the infinite dimensional situation. Applications to graph matrices, age structured population models and economic models are discussed. The infinite dimensional theory of positive operator semigroups with their spectral and asymptotic theory is developed in the second part. Recent applications illustrate the theory, like population equations, neutron transport theory, delay equations or flows in networks. Each chapter is accompanied by a large set of exercises. An up-to-date bibliography and a detailed subject index help the interested reader. The book is intended primarily for graduate and master students. The finite dimensional part, however, can be followed by an advanced bachelor with a solid knowledge of linear algebra and calculus.

This book on recent research in noncommutative harmonic analysis treats the Lp boundedness of Riesz transforms associated with Markovian semigroups of either Fourier multipliers on non-abelian groups or Schur multipliers. The detailed study of these objects is then continued with a proof of the boundedness of the holomorphic functional calculus for Hodge–Dirac operators, thereby answering a question of Junge, Mei and Parcet, and presenting a new functional analytic approach which makes it possible to further explore the connection with noncommutative geometry. These Lp operations are then shown to yield new examples of quantum compact metric spaces and spectral triples.The theory described in this book has at its foundation one of the great discoveries in analysis of the twentieth century: the continuity of the Hilbert and Riesz transforms on Lp. In the works of Lust-Piquard (1998) and Junge, Mei and Parcet (2018), it became apparent that these Lp operations can be formulated on Lp spaces associated with groups. Continuing these lines of research, the book provides a self-contained introduction to the requisite noncommutative background. Covering an active and exciting topic which has numerous connections with recent developments in noncommutative harmonic analysis, the book will be of interest both to experts in no-commutative Lp spaces and analysts interested in the construction of Riesz transforms and Hodge–Dirac operators.