Maximal one-sided ideals in Banach algebras

Abstract

In (1) Akemann and Rosenfeld introduced a property for Banach algebras which they called (*). A Banach algebra satisfies (*) if every maximal one-sided ideal in is closed. They proved that certain classes of Banach algebra with satisfy (*), and they mentioned a conjecture that if is a Banach algebra with , then satisfies (*). In this paper we show that, if is a Banach algebra with a bounded right (left) approximate identity, then maximal left (right) ideals in are closed, and we give a counter-example to the above conjecture. We also give an independent proof that C *-algebras satisfy (*).