Composition operators on the polydisk induced by affine maps (Q630796)

If \(X\) is a Banach space of holomorphic functions on a domain \(\mathcal{U}\) and if \(\phi\) is a holomorphic self-map of \(\mathcal{U}\), the composition operator associated to \(\phi\) is defined by \(C_{\phi}(f)=f\circ\phi\) for any \(f\in X\). The goal is to study certain operator theoretic properties, such as the boundedness or compactness, of \(C_{\phi}\) on the space \(X\) in terms of function theoretic properties about the symbol \(\phi\). The paper under consideration studies the boundedness properties of \(C_{\phi}\) on the Hardy space of the polydisc, \(H^p(\mathbb{D}^n)\), and the Bergman space of the polydisc, \(A^p(\mathbb{D}^n)\). The author is able to provide necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, and in some cases conditions that are necessary and sufficient, to characterize the boundedness of \(C_{\phi}\) on \(H^p(\mathbb{D}^n)\) and \(A^p(\mathbb{D}^n)\). The author also points out that characterizing the boundedness of the composition operator \(C_{\phi}\) on these spaces is in fact a very subtle and difficult question mostly related to the geometry of the domains in question. This is evidenced by two examples of functions defined on \(\mathbb{D}^7\) that are almost identical, but one of them induces a bounded composition operator, while the other does not. The paper has numerous interesting results in the direction of characterizing composition operators. We now just list a couple to give a flavor of what the reader can find in the paper. Let \(I\subset\{1,\dots, n\}\) with \(| I|=q\) and \(\phi:\mathbb{D}^n\to\mathbb{D}^n\). Let \(\phi_I:\mathbb{D}^n\to\mathbb{D}^q\) be the map defined by \(\phi_I(\xi)=(\phi_{i_1}(\xi),\dots,\phi_{i_q}(\xi))\). Theorem. Let \(\phi:\mathbb{D}^n\to\mathbb{D}^n\) be such that \(\phi\in C^2(\overline{\mathbb{D}}^n)\). Suppose that for any \(q\geq 1\), for any \(I\subset\{1,\dots, n\}\) with \(| I|=q\), for any \(\xi\in\overline{\mathbb{D}}^n\) with \(\phi_{I}(\xi)\in\mathbb{T}^q\), the derivative \(d\phi_{I}(\xi)\) has rank \(q\). Then \(C_{\phi}\) is a bounded map on \(A^p(\mathbb{D}^n)\). The above theorem provides a sufficient condition for all \(n\), and an example in the paper shows it is not necessary for \(n\geq 3\). But when \(n=2\), it is in fact necessary as well, and this is the content of the next result. Theorem. Let \(\phi:\mathbb{D}^2\to\mathbb{D}^2\) be such that \(\phi\) defines a holomorphic map on a neighborhood of \(\mathbb{D}^2\). Then \(C_{\phi}\) is continuous on \(A^2(\mathbb{D}^2)\) if and only if, for any \(\xi\in\mathbb{T}^2\) with \(\phi(\xi)\in\mathbb{T}^2\), \(d\phi(\xi)\) is invertible. It should be remarked that there is a published paper that claimed a characterization of this type for all possible dimensions [\textit{H. Koo, M. Stessin} and \textit{K. Zhu}, ``Composition operators on the polydisc induced by smooth symbols'', J. Funct. Anal. 254, No. 11, 2911--2925 (2008; Zbl 1147.47022)]. In the general case, the author provides a very complicated necessary condition for \(C_{\phi}\) to be bounded on \(A^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\). When \(\phi\) is a linear map, this complicated condition becomes sufficient as well; see Theorem 5.2 and the discussion prior to it for the conditions. These results are also extended to weighted Bergman spaces on the polydisc, which is the content of Theorem 8.4. The author also studies the resulting compactness questions for \(C_{\phi}\) and obtains similar conditions as in the case of the boundedness. This can be found in Theorem 10.1. Once the results for the weighted Bergman spaces are obtained, the analogous results for the Hardy space \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\) are also provided. In particular, Theorem 9.1 provides necessary conditions for a composition operator on \(H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)\) to be bounded. When the map \(\phi\) is linear, then this necessary condition is in fact sufficient. The idea of proof behind the Hardy space case is to view the Hardy space as a weighted Bergman space, and interpret the conditions appearing in Theorem 8.4 appropriately.