A semigroup approach to the numerical range of operators on Banach spaces

Abstract

We introduce the numerical spectrum $\sigma_n(A)\subset \mathbb{C}$ of an (unbounded) linear operator $A$ on a Banach space $X$ and study its properties. Our definition is closely related to the numerical range $W(A)$ of $A$ and always yields a superset of $W(A)$. In the case of bounded operators on Hilbert spaces, the two notions coincide. However, unlike the numerical range, $\sigma_n(A)$ is always closed, convex and contains the spectrum of $A$. In the paper we strongly emphasise the connection of our approach to the theory of $C_0$-semigroups.