Contractive Hilbert modules and their dilations (Q1758976)

The authors prove that a quasi-free Hilbert module \(\mathcal{R}\) defined over the polydisk algebra \(\mathcal{A}(\mathbb{D}^m)\) with kernel function \(k(\mathbf{z}, \mathbf{w})\) admits a unique minimal dilation to the Hardy module over the polydisk if and only if \(S^{-1}(\mathbf{z}, \mathbf{w})k(\mathbf{z}, \mathbf{w})\) is a positive kernel function, where \(S(\mathbf{z}, \mathbf{w})\) is the Szegő kernel for the polydisk. Moreover, they establish the equivalence of such a factorization of the kernel function and a positivity condition, defined using the hereditary functional calculus, cf.\ [\textit{A. Athavale}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 304, 101--110 (1987; Zbl 0675.47003)] and [\textit{C.-G. Ambrozie} et al., J. Oper. Theory 47, No. 2, 287--302 (2002; Zbl 1019.47015)]. They also provide an example showing that a contractive quasi-free Hilbert module over the bi-disk algebra \(\mathcal{A}(\mathbb{D}^2)\) need not admit an isometric co-extension to the Hardy module \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^2)\). They investigate the existence of spherical Drury-Arveson isometric co-extensions for a class of row contractive Hilbert modules over the ball algebra as well as obtain a curvature inequality for quotient modules.