Abstract. In the present paper we establish that a contraction on a Hilbert space is a partial isometry if and only if it has a contractive generalized inverse. An equivalent characterization is that its reduced minimum modulus is greater than or equal to $1$. The first equivalence enables us to define a partial isometry in the more general context of Banach spaces.
AMS Subject Classification
(1991): 47A53, 47A68, 46B04
Keyword(s):
partial isometry,
generalized inverse,
minimum modulus,
reduced minimum modulus
Received February 24, 2004, and in final form June 8, 2004. (Registered under 5844/2009.)
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