This book presents the basic tools of modern analysis within the context of the fundamental problem of operator to calculate spectra of specific operators on infinite dimensional spaces, especially operators on Hilbert spaces. The tools are diverse, and they provide the basis for more refined methods that allow one to approach problems that go well beyond the computation of the mathematical foundations of quantum physics, noncommutative K-theory, and the classification of simple C*-algebras being three areas of current research activity which require mastery of the material presented here.
These days, the term Noncommutative Dynamics has several interpretations. It is used in this book to refer to a set of phenomena associated with the dynamical evo lution of quantum systems of the simplest kind that involve rigorous mathematical structures associated with infinitely many degrees of freedom. The dynamics of such a system is represented by a one-parameter group of automorphisms of a non commutative algebra of observables, and we focus primarily on the most concrete case in which that algebra consists of all bounded operators on a Hilbert space. If one introduces a natural causal structure into such a dynamical system, then a pair of one-parameter semigroups of endomorphisms emerges, and it is useful to think of this pair as representing the past and future with respect to the given causality. These are both Eo-semigroups, and to a great extent the problem of understanding such causal dynamical systems reduces to the problem of under standing Eo-semigroups. The nature of these connections is discussed at length in Chapter 1. The rest of the book elaborates on what the author sees as the impor tant aspects of what has been learned about Eo-semigroups during the past fifteen years. Parts of the subject have evolved into a satisfactory theory with effective toolsj other parts remain quite mysterious. Like von Neumann algebras, Eo-semigroups divide naturally into three types: 1,11,111.
