Spectral theory of multiplication operators on Hardy-Sobolev spaces (Q1642291)

Let \(H({\mathbb B}_n)\) be the space of all holomorphic functions on the unit ball \({\mathbb B}_n\) of \({\mathbb C}^n\). Let \(\beta\) be any real number. For \(f\in H({\mathbb B}_n)\) with homogeneous expansion \(f=\sum_{k=0}^\infty f_k\), the radial derivative \(R^\beta f\) of \(f\) of order \(\beta\) is defined by \(R^\beta f:=\sum_{k=1}^\infty k^\beta f_k\). The authors define the Hardy-Sobolev space \(H^2_\beta\) to be the Hilbert space of all \(f\in H({\mathbb B}_n)\) such that \(R^\beta f\) belongs to the classical Hardy space \(H^2\). The inner product on \(H^2_\beta\) is given by \(\langle f, g\rangle_\beta: = f(0)\overline{g(0)}+ \langle R^\beta f, R^\beta g \rangle_{H^2}\). These Hardy-Sobolev spaces include the well-known classical Hilbert spaces of functions: the Hardy space (\(\beta=0\)), the Bergman space (\(\beta= -1/2\)), the Dirichlet space (\(\beta= n/2\)), and the Drury-Arveson space (\(\beta= (n-1)/2\)). Let \(\mathcal M_\beta\) be the pointwise multiplier algebra of \(H^2_\beta\). To each \(\varphi\in\mathcal M_\beta\) corresponds the multiplication operator \(M_\varphi:H^2_\beta\to H^2_\beta\) defined by \(M_\varphi f = \varphi f\). In this paper, the authors study the spectral properties of these multiplication operators. The main results are (i) the computation of the spectrum of \(M_\varphi\), (ii) the computation of the essential spectrum of \(M_\varphi\), and (iii) characterizations for the Fredholm property of \(M_\varphi\). These results have been known in the cases of the Hardy and Bergman spaces. However, the authors' approach in the general setting appears to be highly non-trivial. In particular, the results are new for the higher-dimensional Drury-Arveson space and for the Dirichlet space even in dimension 1.