Commuting Toeplitz operators on the Hardy space of the polydisk (Q5919734)

Let \(\mathbb{D}\) be the open unit disk in \(\mathbb{C}\) and let \(\mathbb{T}\) be the unit circle. For \(n \geq 1\), let \(d\sigma\) be the normalized Lebesgue measure on \(\mathbb{T}^n\) and let \(L^2(\mathbb{T}^n)\) denote the set of all square-integrable functions on \(\mathbb{T}^n\) with respect to \(d\sigma\). The Hardy space \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\) is the space of holomorphic functions on \(\mathbb{D}^n\) such that \[ \sup_{0 < r < 1} \int_{\mathbb{T}^n} |f(r\zeta)|^2\, d\sigma(\zeta) < \infty. \] Using the radial limits, we identify \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\) in the standard way with the closed subspace of \(L^2(\mathbb{T}^n)\), denoted by \(H^2\). If \(P\) denotes the orthogonal projection from \(L^2(\mathbb{T}^n)\) onto \(H^2\), then, for \(f\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{T}^n)\), the Toeplitz operator \(T_f:H^2\rightarrow H^2\) is defined by \(T_fh=P(fh)\). The authors of this paper are interested in characterizing commuting Toeplitz operators on \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\). One of the key ingredients is the Berezin transform. For \(z = (z_1, \dots,z_n) \in \mathbb{D}^n\), the let \(k_z(w)\) denote the normalized reproducing kernel for \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\). Given a bounded linear operator \(S\) on \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\), the Berezin transform of \(S\), denoted \(B(S)\), is the function on \(\mathbb{D}^n\) defined by \[ B(S)(z) = \langle Sk_z, k_z\rangle . \] Recall that a function \(u \in C^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\) is called \(n\)-harmonic if \(u\) is harmonic in each variable separately. Let \([T_f, T_g]\) denote the commutator of Toeplitz operators \(T_f\) and \(T_g\). The main result of the paper is the following: {Theorem.} Let \(f, g \in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{T}^n)\). Then \(T_f T_g = T_g T_f\) if and only if \(B[T_f, T_g](z)\) is \(n\)-harmonic.