Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Let be a Hilbert space and denote the collection of (bounded, linear) operators on by . Throughout this paper, the term ‘algebra’ will refer to a subalgebra of ; unless otherwise stated, it will not be assumed to contain I or to be closed in any topology.
An algebra is said to be transitive if it has no non-trivial invariant subspaces. The following lemma has revolutionized the study of transitive algebras. For a pr∞f and a general discussion of its implications, the reader is referred to [5].