Operators with Compact Self-Commutator

Abstract

Let be a fixed separable, infinite dimensional complex Hilbert space, and let () denote the algebra of all (bounded, linear) operators on . The ideal of all compact operators on will be denoted by and the canonical quotient map from () onto the Calkin algebra ()/ will be denoted by π.Some open problems in the theory of extensions of C*-algebras (cf. [1]) have recently motivated an increasing interest in the class of all operators in () whose self-commuta tor is compact.