Products of several Toeplitz operators (Q1975489)

Let \(a\in L^\infty\) and \(T_a:H^2\to H^2\) be a Toeplitz operator with symbol \(a\) acting in Hardy space \(H^2\) on the unit disk. The author describes the necessary and sufficient conditions on symbols \(a_j\) of Toeplitz operators \(T_{a_j}\) when the identity \(T_{a_1}T_{a_2}\dots T_{a_n}=T_{a}\), \(a=a_1a_2\dots a_n\), holds for an arbitrary \(n\in N\) (recall, that for \(n=2\) this is a well-known result of Brown and Halmos). In particular, it is shown that \(T_{a_1}T_{a_2}\dots T_{a_n}=0\) if and only if one of \(a_j\) is identically zero. The application of these results to problems of compactness of finite sums of finite products of Toeplitz operators is also given.