On the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff Theorem: non- convergence and prolongation issues

We investigate some topics related to the celebrated Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff Theorem: a non-convergence result and prolongation problems. Given a Banach algebra (Formula presented.) with identity I, and given (Formula presented.), we study the relationship of different issues: the convergence of the BCH series (Formula presented.), the existence of a logarithm of (Formula presented.), and the convergence of the Mercator-type series (Formula presented.) which provides a selected logarithm of (Formula presented.). We fix general results, among which we provide a non-convergence result for the BCH series, and (by suitable matrix counterexamples) we show that various pathologies can occur. These are related to some recent results, of interest in physics, on closed formulas for the BCH series: while the sum of the BCH series presents several non-convergence issues, these closed formulas can provide a prolongation for the BCH series when it is not convergent. On the other hand, we show by suitable counterexamples that an analytic prolongation of the BCH series can be singular even if the BCH series itself is convergent.