Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
If $A$ is a prime
${{\text{C}}^{*}}$ -algebra,
$a\,\in \,A$ and
$\lambda $ is in the numerical range
$W\left( a \right)$ of
$a$ , then for each
$\varepsilon \,>\,0$ there exists an element
$h\,\in \,A$ such that
$\left\| h \right\|\,=\,1$ and
$\left\| {{h}^{*}}(a-\lambda )h \right\|\,<\,\varepsilon $ . If
$\lambda $ is an extreme point of
$W\left( a \right)$ , the same conclusion holds without the assumption that
$A$ is prime. Given any element
$a$ in a von Neumann algebra (or in a general
${{\text{C}}^{*}}$ -algebra)
$A$ , all normal elements in the weak* closure (the norm closure, respectively) of the
${{\text{C}}^{*}}$ -convex hull of
$a$ are characterized.