Multiplicativity of linear functionals on function spaces on an open unit disc

Abstract

This paper presents a fairly general version of the well-known Gleason-Kahane-$\dot{\text{Z}}$elazko (GKZ) theorem in the spirit of a GKZ type theorem obtained recently by Mashreghi and Ransford for Hardy spaces. In effect, we characterize a class of linear functionals as point evaluations on the vector space of all complex polynomials $\cl P$. We do not make any topological assumptions on $\cl P$. We then apply this characterization to present a version of the GKZ theorem for a vast class of topological spaces of complex-valued functions including the Hardy, Bergman, Dirichlet, and many more well-known function spaces. We obtain this result under the assumption of continuity of the linear functional, which we show, with the help of an example, to be a necessary condition for the desired conclusion. Lastly, we use the GKZ theorem for polynomials to obtain a version of the GKZ theorem for strictly cyclic weighted Hardy spaces.