The adjoint of a composition operator via its action on the Szegő kernel

Abstract

The adjoint of the classic composition operator on the Hardy space of the unit disc determined by a holomorphic self map of the unit disc is well known to send the Szegő kernel function associated to a point in the unit disc to the Szegő kernel associated to the image of that point under the self map. The purpose of this paper is to show that a constructive proof that holomorphic functions that extend past the boundary can be well approximated by complex linear combinations of the Szegő kernel function gives an explicit formula for the adjoint of a composition operator that yields a new way of looking at these objects and provides inspiration for new ways of thinking about operators that act on linear spans of the Szegő kernel. Composition operators associated to multivalued self mappings will arise naturally, and out of necessity. A parallel set of ideas will be applied to composition operators on the Bergman space.