Fredholmness and compactness of truncated Toeplitz and Hankel operators (Q2516557)

Let \(\sigma(\theta)\) denote the spectrum of an inner function \(\theta\) in the open unit disk \({\mathbb D}\), that is, the set of all \(\xi\in\overline{\mathbb D}\) such that \(\liminf_{z\to\xi,|z|<1}|\theta(z)|=0\). Denote by \(P_\theta\) and \(P_{\overline{\theta}}\) the orthogonal projections of \(L^2\) onto the subspaces \(K_\theta=H^2\ominus\theta H^2\) and \(\overline{zK_\theta}=\{f\in L^2:\overline{zf}\in K_\theta\}\), respectively. The truncated Toeplitz operator \(A_\varphi:K_\theta\to K_\theta\) with symbol \(\varphi\) is defined by \(f\mapsto P_\theta(\varphi f)\) and the truncated Hankel operator \(\Gamma_\varphi:K_\theta\to\overline{zK_\theta}\) with symbol \(\varphi\) is defined by \(f\mapsto P_{\overline{\theta}}(\varphi f)\). The first main result of the paper says that the essential spectrum \(\sigma_e(A_\varphi)\) of a truncated Toeplitz operator \(A_\varphi\) with symbol \(\varphi\in C+H^\infty\) satisfies \(\sigma_e(A_\varphi)=\varphi(\sigma(\theta)\cap{\mathbb T})\). Further, an inner function \(\theta\) is said to be one-component if there is a number \(\varepsilon\in(0,1)\) such that the set \(\{z\in{\mathbb D}:|\theta(z)|<\varepsilon\}\) is connected. The second main result of the paper says that, if \(\theta\) is a one-component inner function, then a truncated Hankel operator \(\Gamma:K_\theta\to\overline{zK_\theta}\) is compact if and only if \(\Gamma=\Gamma_\varphi\) for some \(\varphi\in C\). Moreover, one can choose \(\varphi\in C\) so that \(\|\Gamma\|\leq\|\varphi\|_\infty\leq c_\theta\|\Gamma\|\), where the constant \(c_\theta\) depends only on \(\theta\). Finally, a conjecture concerning the description of the Schatten class truncated Toeplitz and truncated Hankel operators is formulated.