Hyponormality and Subnormality of Block Toeplitz Operators

In this paper we are concerned with hyponormality and subnormality of block Toeplitz operators acting on the vector-valued Hardy space $H^2_{\mathbb{C}^n}$ of the unit circle. Firstly, we establish a tractable and explicit criterion on the hyponormality of block Toeplitz operators having bounded type symbols via the triangularization theorem for compressions of the shift operator. Secondly, we consider the gap between hyponormality and subnormality for block Toeplitz operators. This is closely related to Halmos's Problem 5: Is every subnormal Toeplitz operator either normal or analytic? We show that if $\Phi$ is a matrix-valued rational function whose co-analytic part has a coprime factorization then every hyponormal Toeplitz operator $T_{\Phi}$ whose square is also hyponormal must be either normal or analytic. Thirdly, using the subnormal theory of block Toeplitz operators, we give an answer to the following "Toeplitz completion" problem: Find the unspecified Toeplitz entries of the partial block Toeplitz matrix A:=[U^*& ? ?&U^*] so that $A$ becomes subnormal, where $U$ is the unilateral shift on $H^2$.