Central intertwining lifting, maximum entropy and their permanence (Q1329563)

It is shown that the central intertwining solution in the commutant lifting theorem may be characterized by a maximum principle, which is also shown to be a natural analogue of maximum entropy principles appearing in the Carathéodory and Nehari interpolation problems. The authors' maximum principle is motivated by Robinson's minimum energy delay principle for outer functions. A related permanence principle, which is known to hold for the maximum entropy solution of the Carathéodory interpolation problem, is also established for the central intertwining lifting in the general context of the commutant lifting theorem. Applications of this new permanence property are given for the Nevanlinna-Pick and other interpolation problems.