Defect indices of powers of a contraction (Q967500)

The paper under review gives a nice analysis of defect indices properties of a contraction operator. Starting from the analysis made in the Sz.-Nagy-Foiaş theory on contractions, the paper analyses various aspects of the behaviour of the defect indices in the case of powers of contractions. For a contraction \(A\) on a complex Hilbert space, it is shown that, for any positive integer \(n\), the defect indices have the property \(d_{A^n}\leq nd_A\). Cases when the equality holds are analysed. A triangle inequality of the form \(d_{A^{m+n}}\leq d_{A^m}+ d_{A^n}\) for positive \(m\) and \(n\) is proved (Theorem 1.1). Also, some other properties in various particular cases are presented. On finite-dimensional spaces, relations with the dimension of the space are established. For the norm-one index \(k_A=\sup\{n\geq0 : \|A^n\|=1\}\) on a Hilbert space of finite dimension \(m\), a previous result of the authors [Linear Algebra Appl.\ 368, 359--370 (2003; Zbl 1030.47004)] says that \(k_a\geq(m/d_A)-1\). In the present paper, the cases when the equality holds are determined. In a separate section of the paper, the defect indices of contractive functions of a contraction instead of its power are considered. Firstly, for \(f\) a Blaschke product with \(n\) zeros, it is shown that \(d_{f(A)}=d_{A^n}\), then, for an absolutely continuous contraction \(A\) and \(f\) having a Blaschke product factor, various other relations are established.