Prime and Semiprime Inner Functions

This paper studies the structure of inner functions under the operation of composition, and in particular the notions or primeness and semiprimeness. Results proved include the density of prime finite Blaschke products in the set of finite Blaschke products, the semiprimeness of finite products of thin Blaschke products and their approximability by prime Blaschke products. An example of a nonsemiprime Blaschke product that is a Frostman Blaschke product is also provided.

Prime and semiprime inner functions

Abstract This paper studies the structure of inner functions under the operation of composition, and in particular the notions or primeness and semiprimeness. Results proved include the density of prime finite Blaschke products in the set of finite Blaschke products, the semiprimeness of finite products of thin Blaschke products and their approximability by prime Blaschke products. An example of a nonsemiprime Blaschke product that is a Frostman Blaschke product is also provided.

Comparing skew Schur functions: a quasisymmetric perspective

Reiner, Shaw and van Willigenburg showed that if two skew Schur functions sA and sB are equal, then the skew shapes $A$ and $B$ must have the same "row overlap partitions." Here we show that these row overlap equalities are also implied by a much weaker condition than Schur equality: that sA and sB have the same support when expanded in the fundamental quasisymmetric basis F. Surprisingly, there is significant evidence supporting a conjecture that the converse is also true. In fact, we work in terms of inequalities, showing that if the F-support of sA contains that of sB, then the row overlap partitions of A are dominated by those of B, and again conjecture that the converse also holds. Our evidence in favor of these conjectures includes their consistency with a complete determination of all F-support containment relations for F-multiplicity-free skew Schur functions. We conclude with a consideration of how some other quasisymmetric bases fit into our framework.