Symbols of compact truncated Toeplitz operators (Q2059972)

For \(1\leq p\leq \infty\), let \(L^p(\mathbb{T})\) be the \(L^p\) spaces over the unit circle \(\mathbb{T}\). Denote by \(H^p(\mathbb{T})\) the Hardy space on \(\mathbb{T}\). It is well known that all backward shift invariant subspaces of \(H^p(\mathbb{T})\) are of the form \(K_I^p= H^p(\mathbb{T}) \cap I\overline{H_0^p(\mathbb{T})}\), where \(H_0^p(\mathbb{T}) = \{f : f \in z H^p(\mathbb{T})\}\). The space \(K_I^p\) is called a model space, which is a field inspiring fruitful results at the intersection of function theory and operator theory. The author gives two interesting overlapping results. First, he characterizes the dual space of any given backward shift invariant subspace of the Hardy space \(H^1(\mathbb{T})\) intersected with \(zH^1(\mathbb{T})\). Precisely, he shows that a member \(l\) lies in \(K_I^1\cap zH^1(\mathbb{T})\) if and only if there is a unique \(v+Q\in L^\infty /Q\), where \(Q=L^\infty(\mathbb{T})\cap ( H^2(\mathbb{T})\cap\overline{ I H^2(\mathbb{T})})\), such that \[l(f)= \int_{\mathbb{T}}f(z)v(z)\,dm(z),\] \(m\) being the Lebesgue measure. Furthermore, \(\|l\|=\|v+Q\|_{L^\infty /Q}\) (Theorem 2.2). With this duality result, the author gives an answer to the question when a bounded truncated Toeplitz operator has a bounded symbol (recall that a symbol \(\phi\in L^2(\mathbb{T})\) defines a truncated Toeplitz operator \(A_\phi\) by \(A_\phi(f)=P_I(\phi f)\), where \(f\) ranges over \(K_I^2 \cap L^\infty(\mathbb{T})\) and \(P_I\) is the orthogonal projection from \(L^2(\mathbb{T})\) onto \(K_I^2\)). To be precise, every bounded truncated Toeplitz operator on the model space \(K_I^2\) has a bounded symbol if and only if every compact truncated Toeplitz operator on \(K_I^2\) has a symbol which is of the form \(I\) multiplied by a continuous function on \(\mathbb{T}\) (Theorem 3.2).