Composition of inner mappings on the ball (Q2750892)

Let \(B_m\) be the open unit ball in \(\mathbb{C}^m\), \(S_m=\partial B_m\) the unit sphere, and \(\sigma_m\) the normalized surface measure on \(S_m\). For a function \(h\) in the Hardy space \(H^p(B_m)\), let \(h^*\) denote its boundary function. A holomorphic map \(F:B_k\to B_m\) is called inner if \(|F^*|=1\) holds \(\sigma_k\)-almost everywhere. If \(G:B_m\to B_n\) is another inner mapping, then it is known that the composition \(G\circ F\) need not be inner in general when \(m\geq 2\). It was shown, however, by \textit{X. H. Ding} and \textit{S. H. Sun} [Chin. Ann. Math., Ser. A 18, 313-316 (1997; Zbl 0953.32014)] that \(G\circ F\) is inner if \(\sigma_k^{F^*}=\sigma_m\), where \(\sigma_k^{F^*}\) is the measure on \(S_m\) defined by \(\sigma_k^{F^*}(A)=\sigma_k([F^*]^{-1}(A))\). In the present paper, the authors strengthen the last result by showing that for \(G\circ F\) to be inner, it suffices that \(\sigma_k^{F^*}\) be absolutely continuous with respect to \(\sigma_m\). More specifically, they show that for \(F,G\) inner one has \((G\circ F)^*=r(G)\circ F^*\), where \(r\) is a certain ``abstract boundary value'' (more precisely --- \(r\) is the unique weak\(^*\)-continuous algebra homomorphism from \(H^\infty(B_m)\) into \(L^\infty(\sigma_k^{F^*})\) satisfying \(r(h)= h|_{S_m}\) for all \(h\) in the ball algebra \(A(B_m)=H^\infty(B_m)\cap C(\overline{B_m})\)); and that \(r(G)=G^*\) if \(\sigma_k^{F^*}\ll \sigma_m\). They also show that for \(F\) inner, the composition operator \(C_F:h\mapsto h\circ F\) is bounded from \(H^p(B_m)\) into \(H^p(B_k)\) (\(1\leq p<\infty\)) if and only if \(\sigma_k^{F^*}\ll\sigma_m\) and the Radon-Nikodym derivative \(d\sigma_k^{F^*}/d\sigma_m\) is essentially bounded.