Endomorphism Semigroups and Lightlike Translations

Borchers and Wiesbrock have demonstrated certain results concerning the one-parameter semigroups of endomorphisms of von Neumann algebras that appear as lightlike translations in the theory of algebras of local observables. These results are abstracted and analyzed as essentially operator-theoretic. Criteria are then demonstrated for a spatial derivation of a von Neumann algebra to generate a one-parameter semigroup of endomorphisms. All this is combined to establish a von Neumann-algebraic converse to the Borchers-Wiesbrock results. This analysis is then applied to questions of isotony and covariance for local algebras.