De Branges-Rovnyak spaces and Dirichlet spaces (Q709291)

For a function \(b\) in the unit ball of \(H^{\infty}=H^{\infty}(\mathbb{D})\), the de Branges-Rovnyak space \(\mathcal{H}(b)\), as a linear space, is the image of the Hardy space \(H^2\) under the operator \((I-T_{b}T_{\bar{b}})^{1/2}\), where \(T_b\) and \(T_{\bar{b}}\) are Toeplitz operators on \(H^2\) with symbols \(b\) and \(\bar{b}\), respectively. The inner product on \(\mathcal{H}(b)\) is defined in such a way that the map \((I-T_{b}T_{\bar{b}})^{1/2}\) is an isometry from \(H^2\) onto \(\mathcal{H}(b)\). For a finite positive Borel measure \(\mu\) on the unit circle \(\mathbb{T}\), let \(P\mu\) denote the Poisson integral of \(\mu\). The Dirichlet space \(\mathcal{D}(\mu)\) consists of all functions \(f\in H^2\) such that \[ D_{\mu}(f) = \frac{1}{\pi}\,\int_\mathbb{D}|f'(z)|^2P\mu(z)\,dA(z)<\infty, \] where \(dA\) is the area measure on the plane. The norm on \(\mathcal{D}(\mu)\) is given by \(\|f\|^2_{\mu}=\|f\|^2_{2}+D_{\mu}(f)\). For any \(\lambda\in\mathbb{T}\), the local Dirichlet space \(\mathcal{D}_{\lambda}\) is defined to be \(\mathcal{D}(\delta_{\lambda})\), where \(\delta_{\lambda}\) is the unit point mass at \(\lambda\). It was shown by \textit{D.\,Sarason} [Proc.\ Am.\ Math.\ Soc.\ 125, No.\,7, 2133--2139 (1997; Zbl 0870.46019)] that \(\mathcal{D}_{\lambda}=\mathcal{H}(b_{\lambda})\) with equal norm for an appropriate \(b_{\lambda}\). One of the results in the paper under review concerns the question: under what conditions on the function \(b\) and the measure \(\mu\) does \(\mathcal{D}(\mu)=\mathcal{H}(b)\) with equality of norms? The authors answer this question completely by showing that \(\mu\) must be a positive multiple of the point mass \(\delta_{\lambda}\) and \(b\) must be of an appropriate form. The proof makes use of certain inner product formulas in \(\mathcal{H}(b)\) due to Sarason. For a function \(f\) on the unit disk and \(0<r<1\), we write \(f_r(z)=f(rz)\) for \(|z|<1\). If \(\|f_r-f\|_{\mathcal{H}(b)}\to 0\) as \(r\uparrow 1\) for any \(f\) in \(\mathcal{H}(b)\), then we say that \(\mathcal{H}(b)\) is star-shaped. The authors give sufficient conditions that guarantee the star-shapedness of \(\mathcal{H}(b)\), when \(b\) is not an extreme point of the unit ball of \(H^{\infty}\). They, then recover the known fact (originally proved by \textit{S.\,Richter} and \textit{C.\,Sundberg} [Mich.\ Math.\ J.\ 38, 355--379 (1991; Zbl 0768.30040)]) that \(\mathcal{D}_{\lambda}\) is star-shaped for any \(\lambda\in\mathbb{T}\). On the other hand, they also show that, if \(\|b\|_{\infty}=1\), then there exists a Blaschke product \(u\) such that \(\mathcal{H}(ub)\) is not star-shaped. Lastly, the authors prove that any \(\mathcal{H}(b)\) with non-extreme \(b\) can be represented inside the local Dirichlet space \(\mathcal{D}_{1}\), and hence, inside any local Dirichlet space \(\mathcal{D}_{\lambda}\). Some open problems are raised at the end of the paper.