IMPROVED INEQUALITIES FOR THE NUMERICAL RADIUS: WHEN INVERSE COMMUTES WITH THE NORM

New inequalities relating the norm $n(X)$ and the numerical radius $w(X)$ of invertible bounded linear Hilbert space operators were announced by Hosseini and Omidvar [‘Some inequalities for the numerical radius for Hilbert space operators’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.94 (2016), 489–496]. For example, they asserted that $w(AB)\leq$$2w(A)w(B)$ for invertible bounded linear Hilbert space operators $A$ and $B$. We identify implicit hypotheses used in their discovery. The inequalities and their proofs can be made good by adding the extra hypotheses which take the form $n(X^{-1})=n(X)^{-1}$. We give counterexamples in the absence of such additional hypotheses. Finally, we show that these hypotheses yield even stronger conclusions, for example, $w(AB)=w(A)w(B)$.