Specht's criterion for systems of linear mappings

Abstract

W.Specht (1940) proved that two $n\times n$ complex matrices $A$ and $B$ are unitarily similar if and only if $\operatorname{trace} w(A,A^{\ast}) = \operatorname{trace} w(B,B^{\ast})$ for every word $w(x,y)$ in two noncommuting variables. We extend his criterion and its generalizations by N.A.Wiegmann (1961) and N.Jing (2015) to an arbitrary system $\mathcal A$ consisting of complex or real inner product spaces and linear mappings among them. We represent such a system by the directed graph $Q(\mathcal A)$, whose vertices are inner product spaces and arrows are linear mappings. Denote by $\widetilde Q(\mathcal A)$ the directed graph obtained by enlarging to $Q(\mathcal A)$ the adjoint linear mappings. We prove that a system $\mathcal A$ is transformed by isometries of its spaces to a system $\mathcal B$ if and only if the traces of all closed directed walks in $\widetilde Q(\mathcal A)$ and $\widetilde Q(\mathcal B)$ coincide.