Irreducible positive linear maps on operator algebras

Abstract

Motivated by the classical results of G. Frobenius and O. Perron on the spectral theory of square matrices with nonnegative real entries, D. Evans and R. Høegh-Krohn have studied the spectra of positive linear maps on general (noncommutative) matrix algebras. The notion of irreducibility for positive maps is required for the Frobenius theory of positive maps. In the present article, irreducible positive linear maps on von Neumann algebras are explicitly constructed, and a criterion for the irreducibility of decomposable positive maps on full matrix algebras is given.