Paper detail

Nigel Kalton and the interpolation theory of commutators

This is the second of a series of papers surveying some small part of the remarkable work of our friend and colleague Nigel Kalton. We have written it as part of a tribute to his memory. It does not contain new results. One of the many topics in which Nigel made very significant and profound contributions deals with commutators in interpolation theory. It was our great privilege to work with him on one of his many papers about this topic. Our main purpose here is to offer} an introduction to that paper: A unified theory of commutator estimates for a class of interpolation methods. Adv. Math. 169 (2002), no. 2, 241--312. We sketch the theory of interpolation spaces constructed using pseudolattices which was developed in that paper and which enables quite general formulation of commutator theorems. We seek to place the results of that paper in the general context of preceding and subsequent research on this topic, also indicating some applications to other fields of analysis and possible directions for future research.