Norm preserving extensions of holomorphic functions from subvarieties of the bidisk (Q1394581)

A basic result in the theory of holomorphic functions of several complex variables is the theorem of H. Cartan on the sheaf cohomology on Stein domains: If \(V\) is an analytic variety in a domain of holomorphy \(\Omega\) and if \(f\) is a holomorphic function on \(V\), then there is a holomorphic function \(g\) in \(\Omega\) such that \(g = f\) on \(V\). The subject of this paper concerns an add-on to the structure considered in this theorem which arose in the authors' recent investigations of Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation on the bidisk. The definition for a general pair \((\Omega, V)\) is as follows: Say that an analytic variety \(V\) in a domain of holomorphy \(\Omega\) has the extension property if whenever \(f\) is a bounded holomorphic function on \(V\), there is a bounded holomorphic function \(g\) on \(\Omega\) such that \[ g|_V = f\quad \text{and}\quad \sup_\Omega |g|= \sup_V |f|.\tag{1} \] More generally, if \(\text{Hol}^\infty(V)\) denotes the bounded holomorphic functions on \(V\) and \(A\subseteq \text{Hol}^\infty(V)\), then we say \(V\) has the \(A\)-extension property if there is a bounded holomorphic function \(g\) on \(\Omega\) such that (1) holds whenever \(f\in A\). Consider the extremal problem on the bidisk. For data \(\lambda_i = (\lambda^1_i, \lambda^2_i)\in\mathbb D^2\) and \(z_i\in\mathbb C\), \(1\leq i\leq n\), let \[ \rho = \inf \{\sup_{\lambda\in\mathbb D^2}|\varphi(\lambda)|: \varphi :\mathbb D^2\overset\text{holo}\longrightarrow\mathbb C,\;\varphi(\lambda_i)=z_i\}.\tag{2} \] Unlike the case of the disk, extremals for (2) are not unique. The authors however discover the interesting fact that there is a polynomial variety in the bidisk on which the extremals are unique. Specifically, there exists a polynomial variety \(V_{\lambda,z}\subseteq\mathbb D^2\), depending on the data, and there exists a holomorphic function \(f\) defined on \(V_{\lambda,z}\) with the properties that \(\lambda_1\dots,\lambda_n\in V_{\lambda,z}: g|_{V_{\lambda,z}} = f\) and \(\sup_{\mathbb D_2} |g|=\sup_{V_{\lambda,z}}|f|\) whenever \(g\) is extremal for (2). Furthermore there is a finite algebraic procedure for calculating \(f\) in terms of the data and the critical value \(\rho\) (now, calculating \(\rho\) is a problem in semi-definite programming). Thus, it transpires that there is a unique extremal to (2), not defined on all of \(\mathbb D^2\), but only on \(V_{\lambda,z}\), and that the set of global extremals to (2) is obtained by taking the set of norm preserving extensions of this unique local extremal to the bidisk.