Characterization of Invariant subspaces in the polydisc

Abstract: We give a complete characterization of invariant subspaces for $(M_{z_1}, \ldots, M_{z_n})$ on the Hardy space $H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)$ over the unit polydisc $\mathbb{D}^n$ in $\mathbb{C}^n$, $n >1$. In particular, this yields a complete set of unitary invariants for invariant subspaces for $(M_{z_1}, \ldots, M_{z_n})$ on $H^2(\mathbb{D}^n)$, $n > 1$. As a consequence, we classify a large class of $n$-tuples, $n > 1$, of commuting isometries. All of our results hold for vector-valued Hardy spaces over $\mathbb{D}^n$, $n > 1$. Our invariant subspace theorem solves the well-known open problem on characterizations of invariant subspaces of the Hardy space over the unit polydisc.