Axioms required to get Wold-Type decomposition

Abstract

Three canonical decompositions concerning commuting pair of isometries, power partial isometries, and contractions are reassessed. They have already been proved in von Neumann algebras. In the corresponding proofs, both norm and weak operator topologies are heavily involved. Ignoring topological structures, we give an algebraic approach to obtain them in the larger category of Baer $*$-rings.