Operators of Class $C_0$ with Spectra in Multiply Connected Regions

Book excerpt: In the present paper the author studies the analogue of the class [italic capital]C0 within a class of operators having a functional calculus based on the algebra of bounded holomorphic functions in a finitely connected domain with an analytic boundary. The latter class consists of the operators having the closure of the domain as a spectral set and having no normal direct summands with spectra contained in the boundary of the domain. (If the domain is the disk the preceding class reduces to the class of completely nonunitary contractions.) The basic properties known for the case of the disk, including the model theory, are established. The extension, even the mere construction of the functional calculus, is not routine, in part because it is unknown whether the analogue of Sz.-Nagy's dilation theorem is true in the author's multiply connected setting.