Cyclicity in Dirichlet-type spaces and extremal polynomials (Q2352248)

For \(\alpha \in {\mathbb R}\), the Dirichlet-type space \(D_\alpha\) consists of all analytic functions \(f:{\mathbb D} \to {\mathbb C}\) whose Taylor coefficients in the expansion \(f(z)=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} a_k z^k\) satisfy \(\| f\|_{\alpha}^{2}=\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}(k+1)^\alpha |a_k|^2<\infty\). These are Hilbert spaces which for particular values of \(\alpha\) correspond to some classical spaces: \(\alpha=-1\) gives the Bergman space \(B\), \(\alpha=0\) gives the Hardy space \(H^2\) and \(\alpha=1\) gives the usual Dirichlet space \(D\). A function \(f\in D_\alpha\) is said to be cyclic if the closed linear span of \(\{ z^k f:\, k=0,1,2, \dots\}\) coincides with \(D_\alpha\). In general, it is not easy to characterize cyclic functions. In this paper, the authors study certain classes of cyclic functions in detail. They are concerned with the following questions. Given a cyclic function \(f\in D_\alpha\), can we obtain an explicit sequence of polynomials \(\{ p_n\}\) such that \(\| p_n f-1\|_\alpha \to 0\) as \(n\to \infty\)? Can we give an estimate on the rate of decay of these norms as \(n\to \infty\)? What can we say about the approximating polynomials? For \(f\in D_\alpha\), a polynomial \(p_n\) of degree at most \(n\) is an optimal approximant of order \(n\) to \(1/f\) if \(p_n\) minimizes \(\| pf-1\|_\alpha\) among all polynomials \(p\) of degree at most \(n\). In the paper, first a constructive approach for computing the coefficients of the optimal approximant of order \(n\) to \(1/f\) is described. It is shown that the mentioned coefficients can be computed as ratios of determinants of matrices whose entries can be explicitly computed via the moments of the derivative of \(f\). Then, for certain classes of functions \(f\), sharp estimates for the rate of decay of \(\| p_nf-1\|_\alpha\) as \(n \to \infty\) are obtained. At the end, the authors deal with a generalization to all \(D_\alpha\) of a subproblem of the Brown-Shields conjecture: must a function \(f\) satisfying \(f\in D_\alpha\) and \(\log f\in D_\alpha\) be cyclic in \(D_\alpha\)? It is proved that the answer is yes if \(\alpha=1\) and the same answer is given under an additional technical condition in the case when \(\alpha <1\), \(\alpha \neq 0\).