Hankel operators on planar domains (Q916063)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded domain in the plane whose boundary consists of a finite number of disjoint analytic simple closed curves. Let \(A^ 2\) denote the Bergman space of analytic functions which are square integrable with respect to the Lebesgue area measure dA. The Hankel operator with symbol b is defined by \[ H_ b(g)=(I-P)\bar b\cdot g,\quad g\in A^ 2, \] where P: \(L^ 2(\Omega,dA)\to A^ 2\) is the orthogonal projection. The paper continues earlier studies of the authors (and others) by finding conditions under which \(H_ b\) is bounded, compact or belongs to the Schatten-von Neumann ideal \(S_ p\), \(1\leq p<\infty.\) In order to state the main result of the paper we need some definitions. Let \(\lambda_{\Omega}\) be the Poincaré metric, and let \(d\Sigma =(\lambda_{\Omega})^ 2 dA\). For \(1<p\leq \infty\), \(B^ p(\Omega)\) consists of analytic functions f on \(\Omega\) for which \(f'/\lambda_{\Omega}\) lies in \(L^ p(\Omega,d\Sigma)\). The space \(b^{\infty}(\Omega)\) consists of all \(f\in B^{\infty}(\Omega)\) for which \[ \lim_{z\to \partial \Omega}| f'(z)| /\lambda_{\Omega}(z)=0. \] The main result of the paper says: let b be a nonconstant analytic function on \(\Omega\), then (a) \(H_ b\) is bounded if and only if b is in \(B^{\infty}(\Omega),\) (b) \(H_ b\) is compact if and only if b is in \(b^{\infty}(\Omega),\) (c) \(H_ b\) is in \(S_ p\) if and only if b lies in \(B^ p(\Omega)\).