Around the closures of the set of commutators and the set of differences of idempotent elements of $\mathcal{B}(\mathcal{H})$

Abstract

We describe the norm-closures of the set $\mathfrak{C}_{\mathfrak{E}}$ of commutators of idempotent operators and the set $\mathfrak{E} - \mathfrak{E}$ of differences of idempotent operators acting on a finite-dimensional complex Hilbert space, as well as characterising the intersection of the closures of these sets with the set $\mathcal{K}(\mathcal{H})$ of compact operators acting on an infinite-dimensional, separable Hilbert space. Finally, we characterise the closures of the set $\mathfrak{C}_{\mathfrak{P}}$ of commutators of orthogonal projections and the set $\mathfrak{P} - \mathfrak{P}$ of differences of orthogonal projections acting on an arbitrary complex Hilbert space.