Positive commutators of positive square-zero operators

Abstract

In this paper we first consider the question which nonnegative matrices are commutators of nonnegative square-zero matrices. Then, we treat infinite-dimensional analogues of these results for operators on the Banach lattices $L^p[0,1]$ and $\ell^p$ ($ 1 \leq p < \infty$). In the last setting we need to extend the notion of the nonnegative rank of a nonnegative matrix.