Compressions of stable contractions (Q2385091)

The paper under review concerns the stability of compressions of stable contractions. Let \(\mathcal{H}\) be a complex Hilbert space and let \(\mathcal{L(H)}\) denote the algebra of bounded linear operators acting on \(\mathcal{H}\). An operator \(T\in\mathcal{L(H)}\) is called stable if its positive powers converge to zero in the strong operator topology, i.e., \(\lim_{n\to\infty}||T^n x||=0\) for every \(x\in\mathcal{H}\). For any \(1\leq n\leq \infty(:=\aleph_0)\), fix an \(n\)-dimensional Hilbert space \(\mathcal{E}_n\), and let \(H^2(\mathcal{E}_n)\) be the corresponding Hardy space. The operator \(S_n \in \mathcal{L}(H^2(\mathcal{E}_n))\) of multiplication by the identical function \(\chi(z)=z\) is the \(n\)-dimensional unilateral shift, and its adjoint \(B_n:=S_n^\ast\in \mathcal{L}(H^2(\mathcal{E}_n))\) is the \(n\)-dimensional backward shift. In this paper, the authors give an orbit condition yielding the stability for compressions of \(B_\infty\) and prove that there are non-stable unilateral weighted shifts, similar to \(S_1\), which can be dilated to \(B_1\). In addition, the authors show that there are operators in the similarity class of unitaries, which can be dilated to the backward shift \(B_1\).