The distance to intertwining operators, contractive liftings and a related optimality result (Q1417437)

Let \(T'\) be a contraction on a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}'\), let \(U'\) and \(\mathcal{K}'\) (\(\mathcal{H}'\subset \mathcal{K}'\)) be an isometric lifting of \(T'\), let \(R\) and \(Q\) be operators from Hilbert space \(\mathcal{X}\) into Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\) satisfying \(R^*R\leq Q^* Q\), and let \(A\) be a contraction from \(\mathcal{H}\) into \(\mathcal{H}'\). For operators \(Y\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{H}')\) and \(Z\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{K}')\), define the mappings \[ C(Y)=T'YR-YQ\quad \text{and} \quad \widehat{C}(Z)=U'ZR-ZQ. \] The kernel of \(C\), denoted by \(\text{Ker}\,C\), is the set of all operators \(Y\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{H}')\) satisfying \(T'YR=YQ\). Similarly, the kernel of \(\widehat{C}\), denoted by \(\text{Ker}\,\widehat{C}\), is the set of all operators \(Y\in \mathcal{L}(\mathcal{H},\mathcal{K}')\) satisfying \(U'ZR=ZQ\). The main result of the present paper asserts that then there exists a contraction \(B\) from \(\mathcal{H}\) to \(\mathcal{K}'\) such that \[ P'B=A\quad \text{and}\quad \text{dist}(B, \text{Ker}\,\widehat{C})\leq \sqrt{\frac{4\delta}{(1+\delta)^2}}\quad \text{where}\quad \delta =\text{dist}(A,\text{Ker} \,C), \] where \(P'\) stands for the orthogonal projection from \(\mathcal{K}'\) onto \(\mathcal{H}'\) and \(\text{dist}(A,\text{Ker} \;C)\) denotes the distance in the operator norm from \(A\) to the kernel of \(C\). This result generalizes the authors' relaxed commutant lifting theorem [Integral Equations Oper. Theory 42, No. 3, 253--310 (2002; Zbl 1060.47021); see the preceding review] which is a generalization of the classical commutant lifting theorem. In the present paper, there are also given equivalent conditions for the inequality \[ \| F\| \leq\| F-\lambda X\|, \quad \lambda\in\mathbb{C}, \] where \(F\) and \(X\) are bounded linear operators from \(\mathcal{H}\) into \(\mathcal{H}'\).