English

A short proof of Tomita's theorem

Operator Algebras 2024-10-24 v3 Mathematical Physics Functional Analysis math.MP

Abstract

Tomita-Takesaki theory associates a positive operator called the "modular operator" with a von Neumann algebra and a cyclic-separating vector. Tomita's theorem says that the unitary flow generated by the modular operator leaves the algebra invariant. I give a new, short proof of this theorem which only uses the analytic structure of unitary flows, and which avoids operator-valued Fourier transforms (as in van Daele's proof) and operator-valued Mellin transforms (as in Zsid\'{o}'s and Woronowicz's proofs). The proof is similar to one given by Bratteli and Robinson in the special case that the modular operator is bounded.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.16762,
  title  = {A short proof of Tomita's theorem},
  author = {Jonathan Sorce},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.16762},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

12 pages; v2 and v3 correct typos