On the invertibility of restricted Toeplitz operators (Q1924913)

Let \(S\) be a weak peak set for \(H^\infty\). It is shown that if \(b\) is an inner function with \(\overline{b}|S\in H^\infty|S\), then there exists a function \(f\) in \((H^\infty)^{-1}\) such that \(\overline{b}=f\) on \(S\). A Toeplitz operator \(T_\phi\) is called \(S\)-restricted invertible if there exists \(g\) in \(L^\infty\) such that \(\phi=g\) on \(S\) and \(T_\phi\) is invertible. We prove that if \(\phi\in L^\infty\) with \(|\phi|=1\) on \(S\), then \(T_\phi\) is \(S\)-restricted invertible if and only if \(\text{Dist}(\phi,(H^\infty_S)^{-1})<1\), where \(H^\infty_S= \{f\in L^\infty:f|S\in H^\infty|S\}\).