A distance formula for tuples of operators

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new distance formula for tuples of operators, extending known results for commuting normal operators to doubly commuting matrices and Toeplitz operators, with implications for joint numerical ranges.

Contribution

It provides an explicit expression for the maximal joint numerical range of doubly commuting matrices and extends the distance formula to broader classes of operators.

Findings

Distance formula holds for doubly commuting matrices.

Expression for maximal joint numerical range derived.

Distance formula applies to Toeplitz operators.

Abstract

For a tuple of operators $\boldsymbol{A}= (A_1, \ldots, A_d)$, $\text{dist}(\boldsymbol{A}, \mathbb C^d \boldsymbol{I})$ is defined as $\min\limits_{\boldsymbol{z} \in \mathbb C^d} \|\boldsymbol{A-zI}\|$ and $\text{var}_x (\boldsymbol{A})$ as $\|\boldsymbol{A} x\|^2-\sum_{j=1}^d {\big|}\langle x| A_j x\rangle{\big|}^2.$ For a tuple $\boldsymbol{A}$ of commuting normal operators, it is known that $$\text{dist}(\boldsymbol{A}, \mathbb C^d \boldsymbol{I})^2=\sup_{\|x\|=1}\text{var}_x (\boldsymbol{A}).$$ We give an expression for the maximal joint numerical range of a tuple of doubly commuting matrices. Consequently, we obtain that the above distance formula holds for tuples of doubly commuting matrices. We also discuss some general conditions on the tuples of operators for this formula to hold. As a result, we obtain that it holds for tuples of Toeplitz operators as well.