On quasi-similarity of subnormal operators (Q885561)

Quasisimilarity is an equivalence relation on the bounded linear operators on an infinite-dimensional separable Hilbert space \(H\) that is weaker than similarity. A bounded linear operator \(S\) on \(H\) is subnormal if there is a normal operator \(N\) on a Hilbert space \(K\) containing \(H\) such that \(H\) is invariant for \(N\) and \(S\) is the restriction of \(N\) to \(H\). A well-known result of S.\,Clary characterizes the subnormal operators which are quasi-similar to the unilateral shift on the Hardy space \(H^2(\mathbb D)\), where \(\mathbb D\) is the unit disk. Several extensions of Clary's result exist in the literature and are referenced by the author. The author here replaces the unilateral shift with the operator \(M_z\) of multiplication by \(z\) on the Hardy space \(H^2(\Omega)\), where \(\mathbb C \setminus \Omega\) has only finitely many components and \(\Omega\) is a bounded open subset of \(\mathbb C\) such that the rational functions with poles off \(\overline{\Omega}\) are dense in \(H^2(\Omega)\). For \(\nu\) a finite positive measure supported on \(\overline{\Omega}\), the closure in \(L^2(\nu)\) of the rational functions with poles off \(\overline{\Omega}\) is denoted by \(R^2(\overline{\Omega}, \nu)\) and the operator of multiplication by \(z\) on \(R^2(\overline{\Omega}, \nu)\) is denoted by \(S_{\nu}\). The main result is that \(S_{\nu}\) is quasi-similar to \(M_z\) if and only if \(\nu | \partial \Omega\) is absolutely continuous with respect to harmonic measure \(\sigma\) on \(\Omega\) and \(\log\left( \frac{\nu | \partial \Omega}{d\sigma} \right ) \in L^1(\sigma)\). This is precisely Clary's condition when \(\Omega = \mathbb D\).