On Bilateral Weighted Shifts in Noncommutative Multivariable Operator Theory

Abstract

We present a generalization of bilateral weighted shift operators for the noncommutative multivariable setting. We discover a notion of periodicity for these shifts, which has an appealing diagramatic interpretation in terms of an infinite tree structure associated with the underlying Hilbert space. These shifts arise naturally through weighted versions of certain representations of the Cuntz C$^*$-algebras $O_n$. It is convenient, and equivalent, to consider the weak operator topology closed algebras generated by these operators when investigating their joint reducing subspace structure. We prove these algebras have non-trivial reducing subspaces exactly when the shifts are doubly-periodic; that is, the weights for the shift have periodic behaviour, and the corresponding representation of $O_n$ has a certain spatial periodicity. This generalizes Nikolskii's Theorem for the single variable case.