Banach spaces whose algebras of operators have a large group of unitary elements

Abstract

We prove that a complex Banach space X is a Hilbert space if (and only if) the Banach algebra $\mathcal L (X)$ (of all bounded linear operator on X) is unitary and there exists a conjugate-linear algebra involution • on $\mathcal L (X)$ satisfying T• = T−1 for every surjective linear isometry T on X. Appropriate variants for real spaces of the result just quoted are also proven. Moreover, we show that a real Banach space X is a Hilbert space if and only if it is a real JB*-triple and $\mathcal L (X)$ is $w_{op}'$-unitary, where $w'_{op}$ stands for the dual weak-operator topology.