On a tensor-analogue of the Schur product

Abstract

We consider the tensorial Schur product $R \circ^\otimes S = [r_{ij} \otimes s_{ij}]$ for $R \in M_n(\mathcal{A}), S\in M_n(\mathcal{B}),$ with $\mathcal{A}, \mathcal{B}$ unital $C^*$-algebras, verify that such a `tensorial Schur product' of positive operators is again positive, and then use this fact to prove (an apparently marginally more general version of) the classical result of Choi that a linear map $\phi:M_n \to M_d$ is completely positive if and only if $[\phi(E_{ij})] \in M_n(M_d)^+$, where of course $\{E_{ij}:1 \leq i,j \leq n\}$ denotes the usual system of matrix units in $M_n (:= M_n(\mathbb{C}))$. We also discuss some other corollaries of the main result.