arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Ronald G. Douglas.
A canonical model, analogous to the one for contraction operators, is introduced for bi-isometries, two commuting isometries on a Hilbert space. This model involves a contractive analytic operator-valued function on the unit disk. Various pureness conditions are considered as well as bi-isometries for which both isometries are shifts. Several families of examples are introduced and classified.
We study exactness of groups and establish a characterization of exact groups in terms of the existence of a continuous linear operator, called an invariant expectation, whose properties make it a weak counterpart of an invariant mean on a group. We apply this operator to show that exactness of a finitely generated group $G$ implies the vanishing of the bounded cohomology of $G$ with coefficients in a new class of modules, which are defined using the Hopf algebra structure of $\ell_1(G)$.
Let H^2_m be the Drury-Arveson (DA) module which is the reproducing kernel Hilbert space with the kernel function (z, w) \in B^m \times B^m \raro (1 - )^{-1}. We investigate for which multipliers θ: \mathbb{B}^m \raro \cll(\cle, \cle_*) the quotient module \clh_θ is similar to H^2_m \otimes \clf for some Hilbert space \clf, where M_θ is the corresponding multiplication operator in \cll(H^2_m \otimes \cle, H^2_m \otimes \cle_*) for Hilbert spaces \cle and \cle_* and \clh_θ is the quotient module (H^2_m \otimes \cle_*)/ {clos} [M_θ(H^2_m \otimes \cle)]. We show that a necessary condition is the existence of a multiplier $ψ$ in \clm(\cle_*, \cle) such that θψθ= θ. Moreover, we show that the converse is equivalent to a structure theorem for complemented submodules of H^2_m \otimes \cle for a Hilbert space \cle, which is valid for the case of m=1. The latter result generalizes a known theorem on similarity to the unilateral shift, but the above statement is new. Further, we show that a finite resolution of DA-modules of arbitrary multiplicity using partially isometric module maps must be trivial. Finally, we discuss the analogous questions when the underlying operator tuple or algebra is not necessarily commuting. In this case the converse to the similarity result is always valid.
Interpretations of the Beurling-Lax-Halmos Theorem on invariant subspaces of the unilateral shift are explored using the language of Hilbert modules. Extensions and consequences are considered in both the one and multivariate cases with an emphasis on the classical Hardy, Bergman and Drury-Arveson spaces.
We study actions of discrete groups on Hilbert $C^*$-modules induced from topological actions on compact Hausdorff spaces. We show non-amenability of actions of non-amenable and non-a-T-menable groups, provided there exists a quasi-invariant probability measure which is sufficiently close to being invariant.
In this note, we show that a quasi-free Hilbert module R defined over the polydisk algebra with kernel function k(z, w) admits a unique minimal dilation (actually an isometric co-extension) to the Hardy module over the polydisk if and only if S^{-1}(z, w) k(z, w) is a positive kernel function, where S(z, w) is the Szegö kernel for the polydisk. Moreover, we establish the equivalence of such a factorization of the kernel function and a positivity condition, defined using the hereditary functional calculus, which was introduced earlier by Athavale \cite{Ath} and Ambrozie, Englis and Müller. An explicit realization of the dilation space is given along with the isometric embedding of the module R in it. The proof works for a wider class of Hilbert modules in which the Hardy module is replaced by more general quasi-free Hilbert modules such as the classical spaces on the polydisk or the unit ball in {C}^m. Some consequences of this more general result are then explored in the case of several natural function algebras.
In a recent paper, Trent and Wick establish a strong relation between the corona problem and the Toeplitz corona problem for a family of spaces over the ball and the polydisk. Their work is based on earlier work of Amar. In this note, several of their lemmas are reinterpreted in the language of Hilbert modules, revealing some interesting facts and raising some questions about quasi-free Hilbert modules. Moreover, a modest generalization of their result is obtained.
A classical problem in operator theory has been to determine the spectrum of Toeplitz-like operators on Hilbert spaces of vector-valued holomorphic functions on the open unit ball in C^m. In this note we obtain necessary conditions for k-tuples of such operators to be Fredholm in the sense of Taylor and show they are sufficient in the case of the unit disk.
We study reducing subspaces for an analytic multiplication operator M_{z^{n}} on the Bergman space L_{a}^{2}(A_{r}) of the annulus A_{r}, and we prove that M_{z^{n}} has exactly 2^n reducing subspaces. Furthermore, in contrast to what happens for the disk, the same is true for the Hardy space on the annulus. Finally, we extend the results to certain bilateral weighted shifts, and interpret the results in the context of complex geometry.
In this paper, using the group-like property of local inverses of a finite Blaschke product $ϕ$, we will show that the largest $C^*$-algebra in the commutant of the multiplication operator $M_ϕ$ by $ϕ$ on the Bergman space is finite dimensional, and its dimension equals the number of connected components of the Riemann surface of $ϕ^{-1}\circϕ$ over the unit disk. If the order of the Blaschke product $ϕ$ is less than or equal to eight, then every $C^*$-algebra contained in the commutant of $M_ϕ$ is abelian and hence the number of minimal reducing subspaces of $M_ϕ$ equals the number of connected components of the Riemann surface of $ϕ^{-1}\circϕ$ over the unit disk.
We discuss the relation between questions regarding the essential normality of finitely generated essentially spherical isometries and some results and conjectures of Arveson and Guo-Wang on the closure of homogeneous ideals in the m-shift space. We establish a general results for the case of two tuples and ideals with one dimensional zero variety. Further, we show how to reduce the analogous question for quasi-homogeneous ideals, to those results for homogeneous ones. Finally, we show that the essential reductivity of positive regular Hilbert modules is directly related to a generalization of the Arveson problem.
In this paper we begin a study of the space of unbounded self-adjoint Fredholm operators as a classifying space for K^{1}(X), with the goal of incorporating the information in the eigenspaces and eigenvalues of the operators. In particular, the role that the multiplicity of eigenvalues plays is developed here.
One approach to multivariate operator theory involves concepts and techniques from algebraic and complex geometry and is formulated in terms of Hilbert modules. In these notes we provide an introduction to this approach including many proofs. We are particularly interested in examples related to hermitian holomorphic vector bundles and we study submodules and reducing submodules in such cases. We go into some detail concerning a problem of Zhu on the reducing subspaces of powers of the Bergman shift as well as more recent work of the author and J. Sarkar on proper submodules which are unitarily equivalent to the orginal. Although the basic results are not new, there is some novelty in the details and the organization of the material.
The Hardy space on the unit ball in C^n provides examples of a quasi-free, finite rank Hilbert module which contains a pure submodule isometrically isomorphic to the module itself. For n=1 the submodule has finite codimension. In this note we show that this phenomenon can only occur for modules over domains in the complex plain and for finitely-connected domains only for Hardy-like spaces, the bundle shifts. Moreover, we show for essentially reductive modules that even when the codimension is infinite, the module is subnormal and again, on nice domains such as the unit ball, must be Hardy-like.
For any open, connected and bounded set $Ω\subseteq \mathbb C^m$, let $\mathcal A$ be a natural function algebra consisting of functions holomorphic on $Ω$. Let $\mathcal M$ be a Hilbert module over the algebra $\mathcal A$ and $\mathcal M_0\subseteq \mathcal M$ be the submodule of functions vanishing to order $k$ on a hypersurface $\mathcal Z \subseteq Ω$. Recently the authors have obtained an explicit complete set of unitary invariants for the quotient module $\mathcal Q = \mathcal M \ominus \mathcal M_0$ in the case of $k=2$. In this paper, we relate these invariants to familiar notions from complex geometry. We also find a complete set of unitary invariants for the general case. We discuss many concrete examples in this setting. As an application of our equivalence results, we characterise certain homogeneous Hilbert modules over the bi-disc algebra.
Many Hilbert modules over the polynomial ring in m variables are essentially reductive, that is, have commutators which are compact. Arveson has raised the question of whether the closure of homogeneous ideals inherit this property and provided motivation to seek an affirmative answer. Positive results have been obtained by Arveson, Guo, Wang and the author. More recently, Guo and Wang extended the results to quasi-homogeneous ideals in two variables. Building on their techniques, in this note the author extends this result to Hilbert modules over certain Reinhardt domains such as ellipsoids in two variables and analyzes extending the result to the closure of quasi-homogeneous ideals in m variables when the zero variety has dimension one.
WE use the structure theory for C_0 operators to determine when the square of a C_0(1) operator is irreducible and when its lattices of invariant and hyperinvariant subspaces coincide.
Index theory has had profound impact on many branches of mathematics. In this note we discuss the context for a new kind of index theorem. We begin, however, with some operator theoretic results. In [11] Berger and Shaw established that finitely cyclic hyponormal operators have trace-class self-commutators. In [9], [31] Berger and Voiculescu extended this result to operators whose self-commutators can be expressed as the sum of a positive and a trace-class operator. In this note we show this result can't be extended to operators whose self-commutator can be expressed as the sum of a positive and a S_p-class operator. Then we discuss a conjecture of Arveson [4] on homogeneous submodules of the m-shift Hilbert space H^2_m and propose some refinements of it. Further, we show how a positive solution would enable one to define K-homology elements for subvarieties in a strongly pseudo-convex domain with smooth boundary using submodules of the corresponding Bergman module. Finally, we discuss how the Chern character of these classes in cyclic cohomology could be defined and indicate what we believe the index to be.