Majorization and a Schur–Horn theorem for positive compact operators, the nonzero kernel case

Schur–Horn theorems focus on determining the diagonal sequences obtainable for an operator under all possible basis changes, formally described as the range of the canonical conditional expectation of its unitary orbit.Following a brief background survey, we prove an infinite dimensional Schur–Horn theorem for positive compact operators with infinite dimensional kernel, one of the two open cases posed recently by Kaftal–Weiss. There, they characterized the diagonals of operators in the unitary orbits for finite rank or zero kernel positive compact operators. Here we show how the characterization problem depends on the dimension of the kernel when it is finite or infinite dimensional.We obtain exact majorization characterizations of the range of the canonical conditional expectation of the unitary orbits of positive compact operators with infinite dimensional kernel, unlike the approximate characterizations of Arveson–Kadison, but extending the exact characterizations of Gohberg–Markus and Kaftal–Weiss.Recent advances in this subject and related subjects like traces on ideals show the relevance of new kinds of sequence majorization as in the work of Kaftal–Weiss (e.g., strong majorization and another majorization similar to what here we call p-majorization), and of Kalton–Sukochev (e.g., uniform Hardy–Littlewood majorization), and of Bownik–Jasper (e.g., Riemann and Lebesgue majorization). Likewise key tools here are new kinds of majorization, which we call p- and approximate p  -majorization (0≤p≤∞0≤p≤∞).