Given a densely defined closed operator $$T:{\mathcal {D}}(T)\subset H\rightarrow K$$ , von Neumann defined $$W:=(I+T^*T)^{-1}$$ and showed that $$0\le W\le I$$ , $${\mathcal {K}}(W)=\{0\}$$ and $$T^*T=(I-W)W^{-1}=W^{-1}(I-W)$$ with $${\mathcal {D}}(T^*T)={\mathcal {R}}(W)$$ . (Here, $${\mathcal {D}}(\cdot )$$ , $${\mathcal {R}}(\cdot )$$ , $${\mathcal {K}}(\cdot )$$ and, later, $${\mathcal {G}}(T)$$ stand for the domain, the range, the kernel, and the graph of a linear transformation, respectively.) The functional calculus is not applicable, in general, to guess a formula like $$(I-W)^{1/2}W^{-1/2}$$ for $$|T|(:=(T^*T)^{1/2})$$ and to achieve a polar decomposition $$T=V|T|$$ for T. Also, the operators $${\bar{T}}$$ and $$T^*$$ do not exist as single-valued operators to be able to define W and extend our conjectures to arbitrary unbounded linear operators. The task of the present paper is to define the von Neumann operator W directly from $${\mathcal {G}}(T)$$ and prove all the desired extensions.
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