Difference of composition operators on Hardy space (Q2855181)

Let \(\varphi\) be an analytic self-map of the open unit disk. A composition operator \(C_\varphi f=f\circ \varphi\) induced by \(\varphi\) is bounded for every function \(f\) belonging to the Hardy space \(H^2\). The authors study a difference of two composition operators induced by analytic self-maps of the open unit disk.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the first part of this paper, the authors find a sufficient condition for two composition operators to ``lie in the same path component of \(C(H^2)\)'', where \(C(H^2)\) is ``the collection of all composition operators on \(H^2\)''. Similar methods are used to give a sufficient condition for compactness of the difference of two composition operators. The authors come to the same conclusion as \textit{J. Moorhouse} and \textit{C. Toews} in [Contemp. Math. 321, 207--213 (2003; Zbl 1052.47018)], namely, that two composition operators from the same path component need not have a compact difference.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the second part of this paper, the authors discuss when the difference of two composition operators is a Hilbert-Schmidt operator. They give necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the pseudo-hyperbolic distance between the functions inducing composition operators.