Local automorphisms of operator algebras on Banach spaces

In this paper we extend a result of Šemrl stating that every 2-local automorphism of the full operator algebra on a separable infinite dimensional Hilbert space is an automorphism. In fact, besides separable Hilbert spaces, we obtain the same conclusion for the much larger class of Banach spaces with Schauder bases. The proof rests on an analogous statement concerning the 2-local automorphisms of matrix algebras for which we present a short proof. The need to get such a proof was formulated in Šemrl’s paper.