Two-moment characterization of spectral measures on the real line

Abstract

Kiukas, Lahti and Ylinen asked the following general question. When is a positive operator measure projection valued? A version of this question formulated in terms of operator moments was posed in a recent paper of the present authors. Let $T$ be a selfadjoint operator and $F$ be a Borel semispectral measure on the real line with compact support. For which positive integers $p< q$ do the equalities $T^k =\int_{\mathbb{R}} x^k F(dx)$, $k=p, q$, imply that $F$ is a spectral measure? In the present paper, we completely solve the second problem. The answer is affirmative if $p$ is odd and $q$ is even, and negative otherwise. The case $(p,q)=(1,2)$ closely related to intrinsic noise operator was solved by several authors including Kruszy\'{n}ski and de Muynck as well as Kiukas, Lahti and Ylinen. The counterpart of the second problem concerning the multiplicativity of unital positive linear maps on $C^*$-algebras is also solved.