The strong Hamburger moment problem and self-adjoint operators in Hilbert space (Q1095334)

The author gives operator proofs and interpretations for the Hamburger, Hausdorff, and Stieltjes moment problems. The main idea starts with the usual positive condition on the Hankel determinants of the moments \(\{c_ n\}\), \(n\in Z\), and generates a special sequence \(\{u_ n\}\), \(n\in Z\), of linearly independent vectors in a separable Hilbert space H. The vectors have the property that span \(\{u_ n\}\) is dense in H and \(<u_ p,u_ q>=c_{p+q}\). From this the shift operator \(Au_ n=u_{n+1}\) is shown to have a selfadjoint extension T so that \[ c_ n=<T^ nu_ 0,u_ 0>=\int^{\infty}_{-\infty}\lambda <E(d\lambda)u_ 0,u_ 0>. \] A number of ancillary results are given such as, if \(\mu\) is the Borel measure \(\mu (\delta)=<E(\delta)u_ 0,u_ 0>\) and M the multiplication operator in \(L_ 2(\mu)\) then \(T=\phi M\phi^{-1}\) where \(\phi\) : \(L_ 2(\mu)\to H\) is the isometric isomorphism \(\phi f=f(T)u_ 0\). Two point Padé approximants are developed using resolvent operators based on T. Readers may also want to consult other papers [\textit{J. Vinuesa} and \textit{R. Guadalupe}, Can. Math. Bull. 27, 456-462 (1986; reviewed below) and the reviewer, On the solution of moment problems by reproducing kernel methods, Math. Anal. Appl. 130, 271-299 (1988)].