Universal Block Tridiagonalization in B(H) and Beyond

Abstract

For H a separable infinite dimensional complex Hilbert space, we prove that every B(H) operator has a basis with respect to which its matrix representation has a universal block tridiagonal form with block sizes given by a simple exponential formula independent of the operator. From this, such a matrix representation can be further sparsified to slightly sparser forms; it can lead to a direct sum of even sparser forms reflecting in part some of its reducing subspace structure; and in the case of operators without invariant subspaces (if any exists), it gives a plethora of sparser block tridiagonal representations. An extension to unbounded operators occurs for a certain domain of definition condition. Moreover this process gives rise to many different choices of block sizes.