Outer and inner vanishing measures and division in \(H^\infty + C\). (Q1394484)

This is an interesting paper on the behavior of Poisson integrals of singular measures near the boundary of the unit disk, or equivalently the behavior of singular inner functions on the spectrum of \(H^\infty\). Recall that a singular inner function \(S_\mu\) is given by the expression \[ S_\mu(z)=\exp\left(-\int_T {\xi+z\over \xi-z}d\mu(\xi)\right), \] where \(\mu\in M_s^+\), the set of positive Borel measures on the unit circle \(T\) that are singular to Lebesgue measure. The function \(S_\mu\) is a bounded analytic function of norm one on the unit disk \(D\) and has radial limits of modulus one almost everywhere. The corona-theorem implies that \(S_\mu\) has a unique continuous extension to the spectrum, \(M(H^\infty)\), of \(H^\infty\). Let \(Z(S_\mu)= \{x\in M(H^\infty)\setminus D: S_\mu(x)=0\}\) denote the zero set of \(S_\mu\) and let \(\{| S_\mu| <1\}=\{x\in M(H^\infty)\setminus D: | S_\mu(x)| <1\}\). Associated with each \(\mu\in M_s^+\) is the set \(L_+^1(\mu)\) of measures \(\nu\in M_s^+\) that are absolutely continuous to \(\mu\). Any measure \(\nu\in L_+^1(\mu)\) with the property that \(\{| S_\mu| <1\}\subseteq Z(S_\nu)\) is called, by the author, an outer vanishing measure for \(\mu\). In section 2, the author presents criteria for a measure \(\mu\) to have an outer vanishing measure and shows the following theorem: Every \(\mu\in M_s^+\) uniquely decomposes into a sum \(\mu=\mu_a+\mu_b\), with \(\mu_a\) singular to \(\mu_b\), in such a way that \(\mu_a\) has an outer vanishing measure, but that no nonzero measure \(\lambda\in L_+^1(\mu_b)\) has an outer vanishing measure. It is shown, for example, that any measure \(\mu\in M_s^+\) for which \(\| \mu\| =\mu(\text{int}\, S(\mu))\) has a vanishing outer measure. (Here \(S(\mu)\) denotes the closed support set of \(\mu\) on \(T\).) In section 3, it is proven that if \(\mu,\nu\in M_s^+\) are two measures with \(\mu \bot \nu\) such that \(S_\mu\) and \(S_\nu\) are codivisible in \(H^\infty+C\), then \(\mu\) (and hence \(\nu\)) have outer vanishing measures. (Here \(C\) denotes the space of continues functions on \(\partial D\).)We recall that it is still an open problem whether there exist codivisible singular inner functions in \(H^\infty+C\); a problem posed by \textit{C. Guillory} and \textit{D. Sarason} [Mich. Math. J. 28, 173--181 (1981; Zbl 0417.30024)]. Section 4 is devoted to various examples. Section 5 contains several results on divison in \(H^\infty+C\) by singular inner functions, reminiscent of those by Blaschke products [\textit{K. Izuchi}, Mich. Math. J. 40, 53--75 (1993; Zbl 0783.30028)]. Here the concept of inner vanishing measure plays a role.