On normal products of selfadjoint operators

Abstract

A necessary and sufficient condition for the product AB of a selfadjoint operator A and a bounded selfadjoint operator B to be normal is given. Various properties of the factors of the unitary polar decompositions of A and B are obtained in the case when the product AB is normal. A block operator model for pairs (A,B) of selfadjoint operators such that B is bounded and AB is normal is established. The case when both operators A and B are bounded is discussed. In addition, the example due to Rehder is reexamined from this point of view.