Slice hyperholomorphic Schur analysis (Q345418)

Introduced by W. R. Hamilton in 1843, the quaternions form a unital non-commutative division algebra, with numerous applications in mathematics and physics. The celebrated Frobenius theorem, proved in 1877, placed the algebra of quaternions among the only three finite-dimensional division algebras over the real numbers, which is a remarkable property shared with the real and complex fields. Concerning physics, a first suggestion of a quaternionic quantum mechanics has been seemingly made by Birkhoff and von Neumann in 1936. Besides the inherent mathematical interest for the subject, the existence of some physical premises incited several mathematicians to develop a branch of analysis in the framework of quaternions. A basic idea in this development is to recover a concept of holomorphy in the context of quaternions. Several definitions were proposed, more or less satisfactory, related to the names G. Moisil and N. Theodorescu (1931), R. Fueter (1939/40), C. G. Cullen (1965) and others (see the bibliography of [\textit{F. Colombo} et al., Noncommutative functional calculus. Theory and applications of slice hyperholomorphic functions. Basel: Birkhäuser (2011; Zbl 1228.47001)]). A more recent and fruitful concept, introduced by F. Colombo et al. [loc.cit.] is that of \textit{slice hyperholomorphic} (or \textit{monogenic}) function, discussed and developed actually in the framework of Clifford algebras. This is the starting point of the book under review, whose aim is to extend the classical notion of Schur function and to develop the Schur analysis in the slice hyperholomorphic framework. Let us briefly discuss the contents of this work, which is divided into three main parts, each of them containing several chapters. The first part of the book, including plenty of necessary information, is dedicated to the Schur analysis, in the classical sense. It has three chapters, containing a set of preliminaries, starting with the rational functions and the Schur analysis. Further, one can find the basic information concerning the Krein and Pontryagin spaces, Wiener algebra, and Nehary and Carathéodory-Toeplitz extension problems. Then various properties related to rational functions are exhibited, including minimal realizations and factorizations. The last chapter of this first part deals with the Schur analysis, including the Schur algorithm and its connexions with interpolation problems and reproducing kernel spaces. The second part is dedicated to quaternionic analysis, and consists of four chapters. The preliminary chapter deals with finite-dimensional objects, concerning polynomials and matrices, in the quaternionic framework. The chapter describing the quaternionic analysis presents various spaces over the quaternionic algebra, including locally convex spaces, inner product spaces with emphasis on Hilbert spaces, Pontryagin spaces, Krein spaces, related topologies, and other specific features. Another chapter concerns the slice hyperholomorphic functions, whose main source of inspiration is the work of F. Colombo et al. [loc. cit.]. Besides the definition of this concept, Hardy spaces, Blaschke products and the Wiener algebra are described. The last chapter of the second part is dedicated to operator-valued slice hyperholomorphic functions and presents the spectrum, the resolvent function and the functional calculus in this context. The last part deals effectively with the quaternionic Schur analysis. The first chapter of this part is related to the reproducing kernel spaces, including various classes of functions, in particular Schur and generalized Schur functions of the unit ball, Carathéodory functions, Herglotz and generalized Herglotz functions. In addition, the Potapov-Ginzburg transform, and Beurling-Lax theorem are recuperated in this framework. The second chapter of this part presents rational hyperholomorphic functions, dealing especially with realizations and linear fractional transformations. The last two chapters are related to interpolation and its applications; in particular, first-order discrete linear systems, including the rational case, but also interpolation problems for the operator-valued case and various classes of functions. A large bibliography, containing 281 titles (from which 70 are due to the first named author, alone or with collaborators, but many titles belong to his co-authors), an index of definitions and another one of notation end the book. The book is as self-contained as possible. The authors' choice is to present many known definitions and related results (with or without proof) in the first two parts of the book. This idea is convenient for those mathematicians, especially beginners, wanting to get rapidly familiar with the quaternionic Schur analysis, yet having limited knowledge on the the classical case. The last part contains significant new contributions in the domain, proving the deepness and perennial character of some classical concepts, which are adaptable to a noncommutative framework. The epilogue of the book gives some promising suggestions for possible research subjects in this area.