The $L^2$-Norm of the Cauchy transform on circular annuli

Abstract

We compute the exact $L^2$ operator norm of the Cauchy transform \[ (C_Ωf)(z)=\frac1π\int_Ω\frac{f(w)}{z-w}\,dA(w) \] on a circular annulus $Ω=A(r,R)=\{r<|z|<R\}$. Exploiting rotational symmetry and a Fourier mode decomposition, we reduce the problem to a one--dimensional weighted Hardy operator and obtain \[ \|C_{A(r,R)}\|_{L^2\to L^2} = \frac{2}{\sqrt{μ_1^{ND}(r,R)}}, \] where $μ_1^{ND}(r,R)$ is the first eigenvalue of the Laplacian on $A(r,R)$ with Neumann condition on the inner boundary and Dirichlet condition on the outer boundary. The extremizers are explicitly described in terms of Bessel functions.