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Abstract

We are concerned with the development of the more general real case of the classical theorem of Gelfand on representation of a complex commutative unital Banach algebra as an algebra of continuous functions defined on a compact Hausdorff space. To that end, we use only intrinsic methods which do not depend on the complexification of the algebra, and obtain two representation theorems for commutative unital real Banach algebras as algebras of continuous real (respectively, complex) functions on the compact space of real-valued (respectively, complex-valued) \(\mathbb R\)-algebra homomorphisms.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.

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Correspondence to F. Albiac.

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The writing of this article was completed during a visit of the first-named author to the Department of Mathematics at the Science Institute, University of Iceland in Reikiavik, in the Spring of 2019. F. Albiac would like to thank Campus Iberus for the management of the training activities in international mobility for faculty members within the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission, and to express his gratitude to the host Institution, most especially to Prof. Eggert Briem, for his hospitality and generosity during his stay. He also acknowledges the support from the Spanish Research Grants Operators, lattices, and structure of Banach spaces, with reference MTM2016-76808-P, and Análisis Vectorial, Multilineal y Aproximación, with reference PGC2018-095366-B-I00.

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Albiac, F., Briem, E. Gelfand theory for real Banach algebras. RACSAM 114, 163 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-020-00894-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-020-00894-4

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