Write and . Suppose first that a unital complex-algebra homomorphism sends to . If , the holomorphic function belongs to and is the multiplicative inverse of . Its image is an inverse for . Thus existence forces , even before continuity is used.
For the converse, assume . Choose a bounded finite union of polygonal regions with , , and boundary avoiding . Orient its boundary cycle positively around , including negative orientations on holes. Its winding number is one near and zero outside . Define
The integral exists in because the integrand is continuous on finitely many compact contour pieces. The Cauchy theorem shows it is unchanged by replacing with another such spectral cycle: the difference has zero winding around the possible singularities in . Banach-valued Cauchy statements follow by applying bounded linear functionals. We use the scalar Cauchy integral formula in its cycle form: a cycle with index one at a point and surrounding only a holomorphy region integrates to .
Linearity is immediate and, for a fixed cycle,
This is a bound by one compact-uniform seminorm, proving continuity for local uniform convergence. To obtain , deform the resolvent integral, which is holomorphic on , to a large circle and integrate its Neumann series. Similarly gives .
For multiplicativity choose an outer spectral cycle for and an inner one for , nested in so the inner cycle lies inside the outer region. The resolvent identity is
Substitute it into the double integral for . In the term containing , first integrate around the outer cycle, obtaining . In the term containing , first integrate around the inner cycle, obtaining zero because lies outside it. Interchange is valid for the continuous integrands on disjoint compact cycles. Hence
This proves the required continuous unital homomorphism, the holomorphic functional calculus.
For uniqueness use the following version of the allowed Runge theorem: on any open , rational functions with all finite poles outside approximate each holomorphic function locally uniformly; poles at infinity are allowed, giving polynomials. A unital homomorphism sending to is forced on polynomials and on every inverse , , and hence on these rational functions. Continuity then forces its value on their limits. Thus is unique. This argument works for disconnected as well and does not assume polynomials alone are dense. It proves continuity and uniqueness of holomorphic functional calculus.
We will use the character description of spectra, with a short justification. A character of an algebra is a nonzero complex multiplicative linear functional; it satisfies . Applying it to an inverse shows , so and the character is automatically continuous. Conversely, for noninvertible , its principal ideal is proper because is commutative. Put it in a maximal ideal . The closure of is proper: an ideal containing an element sufficiently close to one contains an invertible element and thus the identity. Maximality makes closed. The quotient is a complex Banach division algebra. By the nonempty-spectrum result of Question 3, each quotient element differs from some scalar by a noninvertible element, which in a division algebra must be zero. Thus the quotient is and its quotient map is a character taking to . This proves
It is the spectrum equals character values in a commutative Banach algebra statement and does not assume semisimplicity.
For any character, continuity permits passing it inside the contour integral. Since and , the scalar Cauchy formula gives
Apply the character description first to and then to to obtain the holomorphic spectral mapping theorem
On , use the analytic logarithm with argument in and set . It satisfies and takes its values in . The principal square root in a commutative Banach algebra is
For uniqueness let be another root with spectrum in . For each character, and are scalar roots of with positive real part, so both equal . Hence every character takes the nonzero value at . The character description implies is invertible. Commutativity gives , and multiplying by the inverse yields . Equal character values alone would not imply equality in a possibly nonsemisimple algebra; the invertible sum is the essential extra step.
Set and . If some , all later powers vanish, their root norms tend to zero, and . Otherwise fix and write , . Submultiplicativity gives
Since , it follows that . Taking the infimum over and using proves
This establishes existence of the limit and its infimum characterization before identifying it with the spectral radius .
For , the root test makes converge absolutely. Multiplication of partial sums shows that its limit is . Thus . For the reverse inequality, take any and the circle . The resolvent of an element is holomorphic off the spectrum, and
To justify this identity, first use a radius larger than and integrate the uniformly convergent Neumann series term by term. Then deform to radius : the intervening annulus has no spectral points. The Cauchy theorem for these Banach-valued integrals follows by applying bounded linear functionals and using their point separation. Consequently, with ,
Taking root limits gives ; let . Hence the full spectral radius formula is
For the product comparison, if and , direct multiplication on both sides verifies
Indeed , and the remaining terms cancel against the inverse equation. Interchanging proves the converse. Thus the nonzero spectra of products in opposite orders agree, so
The possible difference at zero has no effect on the maximum modulus, including when that maximum is zero.
Zero really can differ. In , let be the unilateral shift operator, , and take , . Then , whereas , with the projection onto . The latter is zero on and identity on its orthogonal complement, and these blocks also explicitly invert it away from zero and one. Hence
Finally, for the root norms of tend to , so their norms eventually decay geometrically and the powers converge to zero. Conversely, if the powers converge to zero, choose with . Homogeneity and the infimum formula imply
so . The admissible positive are exactly , proving the power-decay characterization of the spectral radius
This includes quasinilpotent elements with radius zero; no positive endpoint must be attained.
Work with a nonzero complex unital Banach algebra, so . The spectrum of an element is
For , the Neumann series
converges in norm and is a two-sided inverse, by multiplying its partial sums and letting the remainder tend to zero. Thus the spectrum lies in . The assumed openness of the invertible group makes its complement closed, so the spectrum is compact.
To prove nonemptiness, suppose every has an inverse . Locally,
so the resolvent is holomorphic. At infinity its Neumann series gives . For any bounded linear functional , the scalar entire function is bounded: it is bounded on compact disks by continuity, and tends to zero outside them. The Liouville theorem makes it constant, and its limit makes that constant zero. The Hahn-Banach theorem separates points of the normed space , so , contradicting . Hence the spectrum is nonempty and compact.
On the algebra of entire functions, set
It is finite, homogeneous and satisfies the triangle inequality and submultiplicativity. If it vanishes, the identity theorem makes identically zero, so it is an algebra norm. However, no algebra norm on the entire-function algebra can be complete. The coordinate function satisfies algebraically: vanishes at and has no entire multiplicative inverse. A complete algebra norm would make this a Banach algebra, contradicting the proved boundedness of its spectrum. This is the entire function algebra admits no complete algebra norm obstruction; it applies to every proposed complete algebra norm, not only the displayed one.
For all continuous functions on , choose continuous cutoffs
Their supports are disjoint and escape every compact set. Thus is a locally finite sum and is continuous. Let . This nonzero continuous function is supported where and all the other cutoffs vanish. Hence . Any algebra norm would imply
so for every positive integer, impossible. Therefore the algebra of all continuous functions on admits no algebra norm, even an incomplete one. This proves the continuous functions on the complex plane admit no algebra norm obstruction directly.
A point of a convex set is an extreme point if with and forces . It is enough to test midpoints: a nontrivial interior point of a segment is the midpoint of a smaller nontrivial segment.
Here is a proof of the Krein-Milman theorem. The empty-set case is immediate, so take . A face of a convex set is a convex subset such that an interior convex combination lying in has both endpoints in . Consider nonempty compact faces. They include . Every inclusion chain has nonempty intersection, because its closed subsets of the compact set have the finite intersection property. The intersection remains a compact face. The Zorn lemma, ordered by reverse inclusion, therefore supplies a minimal nonempty compact face .
If contains two distinct points, the Hausdorff locally convex hypotheses and the allowed separation theorem supply a continuous real linear functional taking different values there. Its maximizer set in is nonempty and compact. It is convex, and if a convex combination attains the maximum, both endpoint values attain it too; hence it is a face of . A face of a face is a face of , by applying the defining endpoint property twice. This maximizer face is proper because is nonconstant, contradicting minimality. Thus is a singleton, whose point is extreme in . The same minimal compact face argument inside any nonempty compact face shows that each such face contains an extreme point of .
Let . Since is compact, hence closed in the Hausdorff space, and convex, . It is nonempty, closed and convex. If , the allowed strict separation theorem supplies a continuous linear functional with
The maximizer face of on contains an extreme point by the preceding argument. Then but , a contradiction. Therefore
All closures refer to the given locally convex topology, and compactness is what justified both maxima and chain intersections.
For the real l-infinity sequence space, if for any coordinate, choose . The two distinct sequences belong to the closed unit ball and have midpoint , so is not extreme. Conversely, if every is one or minus one, writing for unit-ball sequences forces at every coordinate, because an endpoint of cannot be a nontrivial convex average of its points. Thus
For the space of sequences converging to zero, every unit-ball sequence has some coordinate with , since its coordinates tend to zero. The same opposite single-coordinate perturbations still belong to , giving
These are extreme points of real sequence-space unit balls. There is no conflict with Krein-Milman: the norm-closed unit ball of is not compact in the norm topology, as the coordinate vectors have mutual distance one.
First scale the stated unit-ball approximation. For every nonzero residual , apply the hypothesis to and multiply the resulting vector by . This gives with
For zero residual use . Start with , choose by this rule for , and set . Inductively,
The Banach space therefore contains the sum , with
The partial sums satisfy . Boundedness of gives convergence of the left side to , while gives . Thus is surjective with the stated lifting bound. This geometric correction for approximate surjectivity used completeness of , not any unproved completeness of .
Put . Given a Cauchy sequence in , choose a subsequence such that for . Lift each difference to with and . Lift to . The sum exists in , and its image is the limit of the subsequence. A Cauchy sequence with a convergent subsequence converges to the same limit: use the triangle inequality between an arbitrary late term, a later subsequence term, and the limit. This proves is complete, the completeness forced by uniformly bounded lifting principle.
The open mapping theorem states that a bounded surjective linear operator between Banach spaces maps open sets to open sets. In particular a bounded linear bijection between Banach spaces has a bounded inverse. To deduce the closed graph theorem, let be an everywhere-defined linear map between Banach spaces with closed graph. Its graph is a closed subspace of the Banach product , with norm , so it is itself Banach. The projection
is a bounded linear bijection. The open mapping theorem makes its inverse bounded. Composing that inverse with the bounded second projection proves that is bounded. This is the required closed graph conclusion, rather than a continuity assumption on .
Finally consider the identity map . If in the new norm and uniformly, each assumed continuous point evaluation functional gives , while uniform convergence gives . Hence . Since both spaces are metric, this sequential argument proves the graph is closed. Both norms are complete, so the closed graph theorem makes bounded. Its inverse is bounded by the open mapping theorem. Consequently there are constants such that
This proves Banach norm rigidity from continuous point evaluations. Pointwise continuity alone would not give a common bound on all evaluations; completeness supplies that through the closed graph argument.

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