Test functions, Schur-Agler classes and transfer-function realizations: the matrix-valued setting (Q371805)

Having in mind the classical case concerning the scalar-valued functions, and given two coefficient Hilbert space \(\mathcal{U}_T\) and \(\mathcal{Y}_T\), a family \(\Psi\) of functions \(\psi\) on a set \(\Omega\) with values in \(\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{U}_T,\mathcal{Y}_T)\) is said to be a collection of test functions if \(\sup \{\|\psi(z)\|:\psi\in\Psi\}<1\) for each \(z\in\Omega\). The associated Schur-Agler class is the intersection of the contractive multipliers over the collection of all positive kernels for which each test function is a contractive multiplier. The authors present extensions of the classical framework to this generalized framework, that is, the case where the test functions, kernel functions, and Schur-Agler class are allowed to be matrix-valued or operator-valued. The general theory obtained in this way is illustrated by some examples, emphasizing the case when the matrix-valued version is not obtained by tensoring the scalar-valued one.