Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The notion of a left (right, double) multiplier may be regarded as a generalization of the concept of a multiplier to a non-commutative Banach algebra. Each of these is a special case of a more general object, namely that of a quasi-multiplier. The idea of a quasi-multiplier was first introduced by Akemann and Pedersen in ([1], §4), where they consider the quasi-multipliers of a C*-algebra. One of the defects of quasi-multipliers is that, at least a priori, there does not appear to be a way of multiplying them together. The general theory of quasi-multipliers of a Banach algebra A with an approximate identity was developed by McKennon in [5], and in particular he showed that the quasi-multipliers of a considerable class of Banach algebras could be multiplied. McKennon also introduced a locally convex topology γ on the space QM(A) of quasi-multipliers of A and derived some of the elementary properties of (QM(A), γ).