Cyclic operators with finite support (Q1955864)

\textit{P. Enflo} in his paper [Acta Math. 158, 213--313 (1987; Zbl 0663.47003)] on the invariant subspace problem introduced the following notion: An operator \(T\) on a Banach space \(X\) is called cyclic with support \(N\) if there is a vector \(x \in X\) (called cyclic vector with support \(N\) for \(T\)) such that the set \(\{ \lambda_1 T^{k_1} x +\dots+ \lambda_N T^{k_N} x \mid k_1,\dots,k_N \geq 0, \;\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_N \in \mathbb{C} \}\) is dense in \(X\). The authors of the paper under review introduce the related concepts of hypercyclic and supercyclic operators with support \(N\) and with support \(\infty\) in a natural way. Their aim is to study all these classes of operators in a systematic way. The first main contribution is to answer a question raised by \textit{F. León-Saavedra} and \textit{A. Piqueras-Lerena} in [Isr. J. Math. 167, 303--313 (2008; Zbl 1162.47009)], proving that there are operators that are cyclic with support \(2\) and not supercyclic. Several examples are presented. One of them depends on a recent deep construction due to \textit{M. De la Rosa} and \textit{C. Read} [J. Oper. Theory 61, No. 2, 369--380 (2009; Zbl 1193.47014)]. Another one is a consequence of the construction, accomplished in the article, of unitary operators on \(\ell_2(\mathbb{N})\) that are supercyclic of support \(2\). These examples show that certain well-known properties of supercyclic operators do not hold for (super)cyclic operators with support \(2\). A systematic study of these classes of operators, in particular, about the spectrum of the operator and the set of hypercyclic vectors with support \(N\), is presented in Section~3. Several curious and surprising examples are exhibited. The article also includes deep results about hypercyclic (resp.\ supercyclic, cyclic) bilateral weighted shifts with support \(2\). A bilateral weighted shift on \(\ell_2(\mathbb{Z})\) is hypercyclic with support \(2\) if and only if it is hypercyclic, and it is cyclic with support \(2\) if and only if it is supercyclic. The authors construct a bilateral weighted shift on \(c_0(\mathbb{Z})\) which is cyclic with support \(2\) but not supercyclic. This difference between operators with support \(2\) in \(c_0(\mathbb{Z})\) and \(\ell_2(\mathbb{Z})\) is interesting, since hypercyclicity (resp.\ supercyclicity) of weighted backward shifts in these two spaces coincides, as was proved by Salas.