Volterra invariant subspaces of \(H^p\) (Q950536)

The Volterra integral operator \(V_a(f)(z) : = \int_a^z f(w)dw\), \(|a| \leq 1\), is well-defined for functions \(f\) in the Hardy space \(H^1(\mathbb{D})\) in the unit disc \(\mathbb{D}\) and maps \(H^1(\mathbb{D})\) to the disc algebra. The main result of the present paper concerns the characterization of the closed subspaces of \(H^p\), \(p > 1\), which are invariant for the \(V_a\) operator. Specifically, Theorem A is stated as follows: (i) a proper subspace \(\mathcal{M}\) of \(H^p\), \(p > 1\), is \(V_a\)-invariant, where \(|a| < 1\), if and only if there is a positive integer \(N\) such that \({\mathcal{M}} = b_a^NH^p\), where \(b_a(z) = \frac{z -a}{1 - \overline{a}z}\); (ii) a proper subspace \(\mathcal{M}\) of \(H^p\), \(p > 1\), is \(V_a\)-invariant, where \(|a| = 1\), if and only if there exists a \(t >0\) such that \({\mathcal{M}} = S_a^tH^p\), where \(S_a(z) = \exp(\frac{z + a}{z - a})\) is the atomic singular inner function with singularity at \(a\). The proof uses two important ingredients, namely, the spaces \({\mathcal{V}}_p\) and the concept of nearly invariant subspace. For \(h \in \overline{H^p}\) with \(p>1\), its Borel transform \(\widetilde{h}\) is the entire function given by \[ \widetilde{h}(\lambda) = \int_{\mathbb{T}}e_{\lambda}h \,dm. \] \({\mathcal{V}}_p\) is the space of entire functions obtained in this way endowed with the induced norm \(\|\widetilde{\overline{h}}\|_{{\mathcal{V}}_p} = \|h\|_{H^p}\), \(h \in H^p\). This space enjoys nice properties which are collected in Section 2 of the paper. A closed subspace \(\mathcal{N}\) of \({\mathcal{V}}_p\) is nearly invariant if, whenever \(f \in \mathcal{N}\) and \(\lambda \in \mathbb{C}\) is a zero of \(f\), but not a common zero of \(\mathcal{N}\), we have \(f/(\zeta - \lambda) \in \mathcal{N}\), (\(\zeta(z) = z \)). It turns out that if \(\mathcal{N}\) is a nearly invariant subspace of \({\mathcal{V}}_p\), \(p > 1\), without common zeros, then: (i) If \(f \in \mathcal{N}\) and \(\zeta f \in {\mathcal{V}}_p\), then \(f' \in \mathcal{N}\); and (ii) if the set of functions \(f \in \mathcal{N}\) with \(\zeta f \in {\mathcal{V}}_p\) is dense in \(\mathcal{N}\), then \(\mathcal{N}\) is invariant for the differentiation operator on \({\mathcal{V}}_p\), and there exists an inner function \(\theta\) such that \(\mathcal{N}\) is the Borel transform of \(\overline{\left(\theta H^q\right)^{\perp}}\), where \(q = p/(p -1)\). Theorem A is proved in Section 3, while in Section 4 it is shown that the main result implies a similar structure theorem for \(V_a\)-invariant subspaces of a large class of Banach spaces of analytic functions in the unit disc, such as all standard weighted Bergman and Dirichlet spaces, the little Bloch space, the VMOA space, and the Besov spaces. This is nice and suggestive paper that invites to consider further problems.