βIn a certain sense, subnormal operators were introduced too
soon because the theory of function algebras and rational approximation was
also in its infancy and could not be properly used to examine this class of
operators. The progress in the theory of subnormal operators that has come
about during the last several years grew out of applying the results of
rational approximation.β
βfrom the Preface
This book is the successor to the author's 1981 book on the same subject.
In addition to reflecting the great strides in the development of subnormal
operator theory since the first book, the present work is oriented toward
rational functions rather than polynomials. Although the book is a research
monograph, it has many of the traits of a textbook, including exercises.
The book requires background in function theory and functional analysis, but
is otherwise fairly self-contained. The first few chapters cover the basics
about subnormal operator theory and present a study of analytic functions on
the unit disk. Other topics included are: some results on hyponormal
operators, an exposition of rational approximation interspersed with
applications to operator theory, a study of weak-star rational approximation, a
set of results that can be termed structure theorems for subnormal operators,
and a proof that analytic bounded point evaluations exist.