Communicated by R. O. Vyborny
AbstractLet a and /3 be *-automorphisms of a C*-algebra A such that a + a~l = /? + )3~1. There exist invariant ideals I\, I2 and I3 of A, with I\ n li n /3 = {0}, containing, respectively, the range of /? -a, the range of /3 -a" 1 , and the union of the ranges of P 2 -a 2 and /? 2 -a~2. The induced actions on the quotient algebras give a decomposition of the system (A, a, /?) into systems where /? = a, /3 = a~l and /3 2 = a 2 = a~2. If a and /? are one-parameter groups of *-automorphisms such that a + a~1 = / ? + /3~1, then the corresponding result is valid, and may be strengthened to assert that /1 n I2 = {0}.These