Ranks of backward shift invariant subspaces of the Hardy space over the bidisk (Q358865)

Let \(T_1,\dots, T_s\) be bounded operators acting on a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\). A set \(E\subset \mathcal{H}\) is called a generating set if the smallest invariant subspace for \(T_1, \dots, T_s\) containing \(E\) is the same as \(\mathcal{H}\). The minimum of the cardinalities of such generating sets is called the \textit{rank} of \(\mathcal{H}\) for \(T_1,\dots,T_s\) and is denoted by \({\text{rank}}_{\{T_1,\dots, T_s\}}\mathcal{H}\). Let \(H^2\) be the Hardy space over the bidisk. Recall that a closed subspace \(\mathcal{M}\) of \(H^2\) is called invariant if \(\mathcal{M}\) is invariant under the multiplication operators \(T_z\) and \(T_w\). Given such an invariant subspace \(\mathcal{M}\), the \textit{fringe operator} \(\mathfrak{F}_{z}\) is the operator on \(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M}\) defined by \(\mathfrak{F}_zf = P_{\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M}}(zf)\) for \(f\) in \(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M}\). Let \(\mathcal{N}=H^2\ominus \mathcal{M}\). Then \(\mathcal{N}\) is invariant for the backward shifts \(T_z^{*}\) and \(T_w^{*}\). The paper under review studies the ranks of \(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M}\) for \(\mathfrak{F}_z\) and for \(\mathfrak{F}_z^{*}\), and the rank of \(\mathcal{N}\) for \(T_{z}^{*}\) and \(T_{w}^{*}\). Let \(\{\varphi_n(z)\}_{n\geq 0}\) be a sequence of inner functions such that \(\varphi_n(z)/\varphi_{n+1}(z)\) belongs to \(H^{\infty}(z)\) for all \(n\geq 0\). There is a Rudin type invariant subspace \(\mathcal{M}\subset H^2\) associated with such a sequence. In the case where the sequence \(\{\varphi_n(z)\}_{n\geq 0}\) has no common nonconstant inner divisors, the authors compute \({\text{rank}}_{\mathfrak{F}_z}(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M})\), \({\text{rank}}_{\mathfrak{F}_z^{*}}(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M})\), and \({\text{rank}}_{\{T_z^{*},T_{w}^{*}\}}(\mathcal{N})\). They obtain the interesting formula \[ {\text{rank}}_{\mathfrak{F}_z^{*}}(\mathcal{M}\ominus w\mathcal{M}) = {\text{rank}}_{\{T_z^{*},T_{w}^{*}\}}(\mathcal{N}). \] The case where the functions \(\{\varphi_n(z)\}_{n\geq 0}\) have a common nonconstant inner divisor is also investigated. It is shown that this case reduces to the previous case.