A new class of operators and a description of adjoints of composition operators

Starting with a general formula, precise but difficult to use, for the adjoint of a composition operator on a functional Hilbert space, we compute an explicit formula on the classical Hardy Hilbert space for the adjoint of a composition operator with rational symbol. To provide a foundation for this formula, we study an extension to the definitions of composition, weighted composition, and Toeplitz operators to include symbols that are multiple-valued functions. These definitions can be made on any Banach space of analytic functions on a plane domain, but in this work, our attention is focused on the basic properties needed for the application to operators on the standard Hardy and Bergman Hilbert spaces on the unit disk. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.