nLab compact operator

Redirected from "compact operators".
Compact operators

Context

Operator algebra

algebraic quantum field theory (perturbative, on curved spacetimes, homotopical)

Introduction

Concepts

field theory:

Lagrangian field theory

quantization

quantum mechanical system, quantum probability

free field quantization

gauge theories

interacting field quantization

renormalization

Theorems

States and observables

Operator algebra

Local QFT

Perturbative QFT

Compact operators

Definition

For a linear operator between Banach spaces, compactness is a natural strengthening of continuity (boundedness). A linear operator is compact if it sends the bounded subsets to relatively compact subsets.

The quotient of the bounded operators by the compact operators is called the Calkin algebra.

Properties

Since every relatively compact subspace (in a Banach space, or indeed in any metric space) is bounded, every compact operator is bounded. Instead of checking compactness on all bounded subsets it is sufficient to check it for a ball of one fixed radius: an operator is compact iff it sends the ball of unit radius to a relatively compact set.

See also compact self-adjoint operator.

Completely continuous operators

In the setup of Hilbert spaces, instead of a compact operator, one sometimes says a completely continuous operator. However, in the full generality of Banach spaces, by a completely continuous operator one means slightly less: an operator that maps every weakly convergent? sequence to a norm convergent? sequence. For Hilbert spaces and, more generally, for reflexive Banach spaces, the two notions are equivalent.

References

category: analysis

Last revised on October 17, 2016 at 13:13:36. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.