The central Ando dilation and related orthogonality properties (Q1270216)

If \(S\) and \(T\) are commuting contractions on a Hilbert space \(H\), then, as proved by Ando, there exist a larger Hilbert space \(K\supseteq H\) and two commuting unitary operators \(U\) and \(V\) on \(K\) such that \(S^mT^n= P_H U^m V^n| H\) for any integers \(m,n\geq 0\), where \(P_H\) denotes the (orthogonal) projection from \(K\) onto \(H\). If the minimality condition \(K= \bigvee_{m,n\in\mathbb{Z}} U^mV^nH\) is assumed, then the triple \((K,U,V)\) is called an Ando dilation of \((S,T)\). In contrast to the classical case of a single contraction, the minimality condition does not yield uniqueness up to unitary equivalence. The purpose of this paper is to single out, among all Ando dilations, a distinguished one, called the central Ando dilation, which plays a role similar to the central intertwining lifting of a contraction. A good reference for the latter is [\textit{C. Foias}, \textit{A. Frazho} and \textit{I. Gohberg}, Integral Equations Oper. Theory 18, No. 2, 166-201 (1994; Zbl 0812.47013)]. The idea is, for commuting contractions \(S\) and \(T\) on \(H\), to start with the central intertwining lifting \(B\) of \(T\) and to construct the Ando dilation \((K,U,V)\) of \((S,T)\) that crosses through \(B\) in the sense that \(B= P_{L^+} V| L^+\), where \(L^+= \bigvee_{m\geq 0} U^mH\), which has the special property that \(V\mid\bigvee_{n\geq 0} V^nL^+\) is the minimal isometric dilation of \(B\) while \(U\) is the unique extension of \(U\mid\bigvee_{m\in\mathbb{Z}} U^m H\) which commutes with \(V\). Reversing the roles of \(S\) and \(T\) yields another Ando dilation \((\widehat K,\widehat U,\widehat V)\). The main result of this paper is that these two are unitarily equivalent. This is proved via some orthogonal properties in the space of dilation. The central Ando dilation is also characterized in terms of a maximum principle, which extends the maximum entropy characterization of the central intertwining lifting.