Disconnected spectrum yields a nontrivial invariant subspace

ID: disconnected-spectrum-yields-a-nontrivial-invariant-subspace

For a bounded operator on a complex Banach space, partition a disconnected spectrum into two nonempty compact pieces. The holomorphic function equal to one near the first piece and zero near the second defines a Riesz projection. The holomorphic spectral mapping theorem makes it neither zero nor identity. Its closed range is a proper nonzero invariant vector subspace. This need not be an orthogonal projection, and the argument does not require a normal operator.

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