This book is dedicated to the memory of an outstanding mathematician and personality, Vladimir Petrovich Potapov, who made important contributions to and exerted considerable influence in the areas of operator theory, complex analysis and their points of juncture. The book commences with insightful biographical material, and then presents a collection of papers on different aspects of operator theory and complex analysis covering those recent achievements of the Odessa-Kharkov school in which Potapov was very active. The papers deal with interrelated problems and methods. The main topics are the multiplicative structure of contractive matrix and operator functions, operators in spaces with indefinite scalar products, inverse problems for systems of differential equations, interpolation and approximation problems for operator and matrix functions. The book will appeal to a wide group of mathematicians and engineers, and much of the material can be used for advanced courses and seminars.

The spectral theory of ordinary differential operators L and of the equations (0.1) Ly= AY connected with such operators plays an important role in a number of problems both in physics and in mathematics. Let us give some examples of differential operators and equations, the spectral theory of which is well developed. Example 1. The Sturm-Liouville operator has the form (see 6]) 2 d y (0.2) Ly = - dx + u(x)y = Ay. 2 In quantum mechanics the Sturm-Liouville operator L is known as the one-dimen sional Schrodinger operator. The behaviour of a quantum particle is described in terms of spectral characteristics of the operator L. Example 2. The vibrations of a nonhomogeneous string are described by the equa tion (see 59]) p(x) o. (0.3) The first results connected with equation (0.3) were obtained by D. Bernoulli and L. Euler. The investigation of this equation and of its various generalizations continues to be a very active field (see, e.g., 18], 19]). The spectral theory of the equation (0.3) has also found important applications in probability theory 20]. Example 3. Dirac-type systems of the form (0.4) } where a(x) = a(x), b(x) = b(x), are also well studied. Among the works devoted to the spectral theory of the system (0.4) the well-known article of M. G. KreIn 48] deserves special mention."

A collection of papers on different aspects of operator theory and complex analysis, covering the recent achievements of the Odessa-Kharkov school, where Potapov was very active. The book appeals to a wide group of mathematicians and engineers, and much of the material can be used for advanced courses and seminars.

Theorems of factorising matrix functions and the operator identity method play an essential role in this book in constructing the spectral theory (direct and inverse problems) of canonical differential systems. Includes many varied applications of the general theory.