Function classes on the unit disc. An introduction (Q5919999)

The main emphasis in the book, as the title suggests, are function spaces on the unit disc, including Hardy, Bergman, Besov, and Lipschitz spaces among many others. In the preface the author states that this is an attempt to write a book that differs as much as possible from the existing books in this area. To a great extent the author has accomplished this in at least two ways. First, the book is very comprehensive, in fact almost encyclopedic. The list of topics included in each chapter is extensive. In addition, each chapter contains a compilation of informative notes further expanding on the chapter to include results of recent research. Second, the author develops early on a number of important potential-theoretic results, which once established, are widely applied when applicable to obtain function theoretic results. The importance of potential theory for spaces of analytic functions lies in the fact that if \(f\) is analytic (harmonic), then \(|f|^p\), \(0<p<\infty\) (\(1\leq p <\infty\)), and \(\log |f|\) are subharmonic. In Chapters 1 and 2 the author provides an excellent and concise summary of harmonic and subharmonic functions. Both chapters contain a compilation of the classical results pertaining to the harmonic \(h^p\) (\( p\geq 1\)) and analytic \(H^p\) (\( 0<p<\infty\)) Hardy spaces. Among the many results included in Chapter 2 are the existence of the Riesz measure and the Riesz representation formula for subharmonic functions, the inner-outer factorization of \(H^p\) functions, and the Hardy-Stein identities for the integral means of \(|f|^p\), \(0<p<\infty\). The first two sections of Chapter 3 deal with quasi-nearly subharmonic functions and regularly oscillating functions. These results are subsequently used in the remainder of the chapter in his discussion of the mixed norm spaces \(h^{p,q}_\alpha\) and \(H^{p,q}_\alpha\). In addition to the classical Bergman spaces, the chapter also includes results on Bergman spaces with rapidly decreasing weights as well as mixed norm spaces with weights more general than \((1-r)^\alpha\). Chapter 4 contains a number of variations of the Hardy-Littlewood inequality concerning Taylor coefficients of \(H^p\) functions. Many of the results are obtained as applications of the interpolation of operators on \(H^p\) spaces. Chapter 5 contains a detailed treatment of Besov and Hardy-Sobolev spaces, including decomposition theorems, duality, and embeddings between Hardy and Besov spaces among others. The main goal of the first several sections of Chapter 6 is to prove Fefferman's duality theorem stating that the dual of \(H^1\) is isomorphic to the space BMOA of functions of bounded mean oscillation. This is accomplished without using Carleson measures and Carleson's theorem. The chapter also contains results on the class of functions of vanishing mean oscillation, the coefficients of BMOA functions, the Bloch space and the mean growth of \(H^p\) Bloch functions. Chapter 7 contains an excellent treatment of the Littlewood-Paley theory of analytic functions. The equivalence of the \(L^p\) norm of the Littlewood-Paley \(g\) function of \(f\) and the \(H^p\) norm of \(f\) is proved in Section 2. The analogous result for the Lusin square area integral of \(f\) is proved in Section 5. In addition to Littlewood-Paley type inequalities for subharmonic functions, the chapter also contains results on hyperbolic Hardy classes. Chapters 8 and 9 contain numerous results on Lipschitz spaces of first and higher order, both for analytic and harmonic functions. The emphasis in Chapter 10 is on one-to-one mappings. The chapter includes the distortion theorems of Bieberbach and Köbe, quasiconformal mappings of harmonic functions, as well as results concerning the membership of univalent functions in various function classes, including the Bloch spaces and BMOA. Chapter 11 begins with a discussion of multipliers in abstract spaces and then discusses multipliers for Hardy spaces, as well as Bergman and Besov spaces. Finally, Chapter 12 provides a brief introduction to vector-valued \(H^p\), Bergman and Besov spaces on \(\mathbb D\). One of the main results of this chapter is a proof of the Coifman-Rochberg theorem on the atomic decomposition of functions in the weighted Bergman spaces \(A^p_\beta\), \(0 <p\leq 1\), \(\beta>-1\). In addition to the informative notes, each chapter contains a selection of relevant exercises and occasionally problems worthy of further investigation. The book contains an extensive list of references, and the author has in many cases provided references for results in the text. In addition to the knowledge found in the standard undergraduate curriculum, the book assumes the reader is well acquainted with complex analysis and the theory of Lebesgue integration. Some knowledge of Fourier series and Banach space techniques is also desirable. The author's recommended source for the prerequisites is \textit{W. Rudin}'s book [Real and complex analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. (1987; Zbl 0925.00005)]. Many of the important results concerning Banach spaces, interpolation theorems, and maximal functions are contained in Appendices A and B. In the text, the author introduces the symbol \(\diamond\), where \(\frac{1}{\diamond} = 0\) and \(x<\diamond<\infty\) for all \(x\in\mathbb R\). For example, \(L^\diamond(\mathbb T) = C(\mathbb T)\), \(\ell^\diamond = c_0\), and in Chapter 3, \(f\in L^\diamond_{-1}(0,1)\) means that \(f\in L^\infty(0,1)\) and that \(\lim_{r\to 1}|F(r)| =0\). To the reviewer it appears that the use of \(\diamond\) is not consistent, and sometimes it was difficult to determine what it meant in a given chapter. Aside from this minor annoyance, this is a well-written and detailed text with concise proofs. Graduate students and researchers who are pursuing research in harmonic or holomorphic function theory of one or several variables will find this book to be an excellent addition to their personal library.