Roots in operator and Banach algebras

Abstract

We show that several known facts concerning roots of matrices generalize to operator algebras and Banach algebras. We show for example that the so-called Newton, binomial, Visser, and Halley iterative methods converge to the root in Banach and operator algebras under various mild hypotheses. We also show that the `sign' and `geometric mean' of matrices generalize to Banach and operator algebras, and we investigate their properties. We also establish some other facts about roots in this setting.