Peter Dixon's Home Page

E-mail: P.Dixon  with the usual extension: @sheffield.ac.uk
Extension: 23775 (For external calls, prefix 0114 22 (UK) or +44 114 22 (Abroad))
Hicks Building Room Number: G13
Postal Address

Office hours: see my appointments diary.

Mathematical interests (research)

As an undergraduate, I was chiefly interested in mathematical logic, but as a postgraduate I moved into functional analysis, specialising in general Banach algebra theory (MR classes 46H, 46J). The great attraction of this field as a research area is that it involves both analysis and algebra in proportions which vary from problem to problem. Many interesting developments come from asking natural algebraic questions about Banach algebras which then turn into problems in pure analysis.

I am particularly interested in the following specific topics.

• Automatic continuity theory, including the longstanding Michael problem of whether characters on Fréchet algebras are automatically continuous. I have been working on this problem for more than thirty years, with significant progress about once a decade.
• Topologically irreducible representations of Banach algebras. Big problem: when do the topologically irreducible representations of a Banach algebra separate points?
• Radicals in Banach algebras: for example, the intersection of the kernels of the topologically irreducible representations. What can we say about this and related radicals? The close relation between topologically irreducible representations and the Invariant Subspace Problem makes this whole area very intractible.
• Varieties of Banach algebras and questions related to the von Neumann inequality (MR class 47D25). Sample problem: if a unital Banach algebra satisfies the von Neumann inequality for polynomials (with constant term) in one variable, does it follow that the algebra is isomorphic to a (not necessarily self adjoint) closed subalgebra of the algebra B(H) of bounded operators on some Hilbert space H?. Another classic problem: It is known that the von Neumann inequality for commuting operators fails for polynomials in more than two variables; does it hold up to a constant for polynomials in three variables?

Specific research topics can be seen from my list of publications.

Mathematical interests (teaching)

This year (2008-9), I am giving two courses:  PMA324 Chaos and PMA443 Fractals.

In 2003-4 I gave a level 1 mathematics for computer scientists course PMA1050 Discrete Foundations (which overlapped with an M.Sc. course under the course code PMA6853), and a level 1 course PMA116 Further Subsidiary Mathematics for physicists.

In 2003-4 I gave a level 3 course: PMA445 Functional Analysis.

In 1998-9, I gave a postgraduate course on set theory; a PDF file of the notes may be downloaded by clicking here.

Dept. of  Pure Maths

School of Mathematics and Statistics (SoMaS)