 Gelfand–Naimark–Segal construction

For a state on a C-star algebra $x$ on a unital algebra $A$, put $⟨[a],[b]⟩=x(b^{\ast }a)$ on $A/N_x$, with the inner product linear in its first argument. The Cauchy–Schwarz inequality for positive C-star functionals makes the null vectors pair to zero with every vector. Moreover $c^{\ast }c\le \Vert c{\Vert }^{2}1$ gives $x((ca{)}^{\ast }(ca))\le \Vert c{\Vert }^{2}x(a^{\ast }a)$, so $N_x$ is a left ideal and $[a]\mapsto [ca]$ is well-defined and bounded by $\Vert c\Vert$. Completion gives a Hilbert space $H_x$ and a star-representation ${\pi }_x(c)[a]=[ca]$. The adjoint identity follows from $x(b^{\ast }ca)=⟨[a],{\pi }_x(c^{\ast })[b]⟩$. The unit vector ${\xi }_x=[1]$ is cyclic and recovers the state as $x(a)=⟨{\pi }_x(a){\xi }_x,{\xi }_x⟩$.

The Gelfand–Naimark–Segal (GNS) construction is a fundamental technique in functional analysis and mathematical physics, particularly in the field of operator algebras and quantum mechanics. It provides a way to construct a representation of a *-algebra from a positive linear functional defined on that algebra.