Truncated Toeplitz Operators: Spatial Isomorphism, Unitary Equivalence, and Similarity

Abstract

A truncated Toeplitz operator is the compression $A_ϕ:\K_Θ \to \K_Θ$ of a Toeplitz operator $T_ϕ:H^2\to H^2$ to a model space $\K_Θ := H^2 \ominus ΘH^2$. For $Θ$ inner, let $\T_Θ$ denote the set of all bounded truncated Toeplitz operators on $\K_Θ$. Our main result is a necessary and sufficient condition on inner functions $Θ_1$ and $Θ_2$ which guarantees that $\mathcal{T}_{Θ_1}$ and $\mathcal{T}_{Θ_2}$ are spatially isomorphic (i.e., $U\T_{Θ_1} = \T_{Θ_2}U$ for some unitary $U:\K_{Θ_1} \to \K_{Θ_2}$). We also study operators which are unitarily equivalent to truncated Toeplitz operators and we prove that every operator on a finite dimensional Hilbert space is similar to a truncated Toeplitz operator.