Maps on classes of Hilbert space operators preserving measure of commutativity

Abstract

In this paper first we give a partial answer to a question of L. Moln\'ar and W. Timmermann. Namely, we will describe those linear (not necessarily bijective) transformations on the set of self-adjoint matrices which preserve a unitarily invariant norm of the commutator. After that we will characterize those (not necessarily linear or bijective) maps on the set of self-adjoint rank-one projections acting on a two-dimensional complex Hilbert space which leave the latter quantity invariant. Finally, this result will be applied in order to obtain a description of such bijective preservers on the unitary group and on the set of density operators.