Abelian, amenable operator algebras are similar to C*-algebras

Abstract

Suppose that H is a complex Hilbert space and that B(H) denotes the bounded linear operators on H. We show that every abelian, amenable operator algebra is similar to a C*-algebra. We do this by showing that if A is an abelian subalgebra of B(H) with the property that given any bounded representation $\varrho: A \to B(H_\varrho)$ of A on a Hilbert space $H_\varrho$, every invariant subspace of $\varrho(A)$ is topologically complemented by another invariant subspace of $\varrho(A)$, then A is similar to an abelian $C^*$-algebra.