Diagonalization and representation results for nonpositive sesquilinear form measures

We study decompositions of operator measures and more general sesquilinear form measures E into linear combinations of positive parts, and their diagonal vector expansions. The underlying philosophy is to represent E as a trace class valued measure of bounded variation on a new Hilbert space related to E. The choice of the auxiliary Hilbert space fixes a unique decomposition with certain properties, but this choice itself is not canonical. We present relations to Naimark type dilations and direct integrals. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.