Linear isometries between subspaces of continuous functions

Abstract:

We say that a linear subspace $A$ of $C_0 (X)$ is strongly separating if given any pair of distinct points $x_1, x_2$ of the locally compact space $X$, then there exists $f \in A$ such that $\left | f(x_1 ) \right | \neq \left | f(x_2 ) \right |$. In this paper we prove that a linear isometry $T$ of $A$ onto such a subspace $B$ of $C_0(Y)$ induces a homeomorphism $h$ between two certain singular subspaces of the Shilov boundaries of $B$ and $A$, sending the Choquet boundary of $B$ onto the Choquet boundary of $A$. We also provide an example which shows that the above result is no longer true if we do not assume $A$ to be strongly separating. Furthermore we obtain the following multiplicative representation of $T$: $(Tf)(y)=a(y)f(h(y))$ for all $y \in \partial B$ and all $f \in A$, where $a$ is a unimodular scalar-valued continuous function on $\partial B$. These results contain and extend some others by Amir and Arbel, Holsztyński, Myers and Novinger. Some applications to isometries involving commutative Banach algebras without unit are announced.