Observations on a paper by Rosenblum

M. Rosenblum in [2] presented a most ingenious proof of the Fuglede and Putnam Theorems by means of entire vector valued functions [1, p. 59]. We will demonstrate that some curious properties of bounded Hilbert space operators can be derived from Rosenblum's argument and similar arguments. Throughout this text we mean by an "operator" a bounded linear transformation of a Hilbert space into itself. Given an operator A we mean by "exp A " the uniform limit of the series I+A +A 2/2 1 +A3/3! +A4/4! + * * * . We let A * denote the adjoint of the operator A, and let z* denote the complex conjugate of the complex number z. A "normal" operator is an operator which commutes with its adjoint. A critical fact in the Rosenblum proof is that given a normal operator A and any complex number z, exp (izA) exp (iz*A *) exp (izA +iz*A *) = exp (iz*A *) exp (izA), and this operator is unitary because i(zA +z*A *) is skew hermitian. Our first result states, among other things, that the converse is true; if the above equations hold for a fixed operator A and all complex numbers z, then A is normal.