A simplification of the Kovarik formula

Let P,Q be two idempotents on a Hilbert space. Z.V. Kovarik (Z.V. Kovarik, Similarity and interpolation between projectors, Acta Sci. Math. (Szeged) 39 (1977) 341–351) showed that when P+Q−I is invertible, the formula K(P,Q)=P−2(P+Q−I)Q gives the only idempotent such that R(K)=R(P), N(K)=N(Q), where N(T) and R(T) denote the nullspace and the range of a bounded linear operator T on a Hilbert space, respectively. This formula was later extended to the context of Banach algebras and used in 1983 by J. Esterle to show that two homotopic idempotents may always be connected by a polynomial idempotent valued path. In the present paper, we give a simplification of Kovarik's original formula and one natural generalization of it.