An abstract analogon of the de Branges-Rovnyak functional model (Q2367202)

Let \(T\) be a contraction on a Hilbert space \(H\) and \(U\) be its minimal unitary dilation on a space \(K\supseteq H\). If \(L=((U-T)H)^ -\), \(L_ *=((1- UT^*)H)^ -\), \(M(L)=\sum^ \infty_{n=-\infty} \oplus U^ n L\) and \(M(L_ *)=\sum^ \infty _{n=-\infty} U^ n L_ *\), and \(T\) is completely nonunitary, then it can be shown that \(K=M(L_ *)\vee M(L)\). Analyzing the structure of these operators and spaces will yield three essentially equivalent functional models for \(T\): Sz.-Nagy- Foiaş model, Pavlov model and de Branges-Rovnyak model. The purpose of this paper is to develop an abstract analogue of the de Branges- Rovnyak model. It starts with an arbitrary Hilbert space \(K\) spanned by two of its subspaces \(K_ 1\) and \(K_ 2\), \(K=K_ 1\vee K_ 2\). Here \(K_ 1\) and \(K_ 2\) play the roles of \(M(L_ *)\) and \(M(L)\), respectively. In this general setting, the authors investigate properties of the mapping \(P: K\to K_ 1\oplus K_ 2\) defined by \(Pk=P(K_ 1)k\oplus P(K_ 2)k\), where \(k\in K\) and \(P(K_ 1)\) and \(P(K_ 2)\) denote the orthogonal projections onto \(K_ 1\) and \(K_ 2\), respectively. \(P\) will become an isometry when \(\text{ran} P\) is given a suitable norm, which yields a representation of \(K\). Then they impose more conditions on the spaces \(K\), \(K_ 1\) and \(K_ 2\) as dictated by the geometry of the space of the minimal unitary dilation of a completely nonunitary contraction and perform more refined analysis of the representation mapping \(P\). As an application, they show in the final section that this yields a simple approach to the classical theory of de Branges and Rovnyak.