Pontryagin spaces of entire functions I

We give a generalization of L.de Branges theory of Hilbert spaces of entire functions to the Pontryagin space setting. The aim of this-first-part is to provide some basic results and to investigate subspaces of Pontryagin spaces of entire functions. Our method makes strong use of L.de Branges's results and of the extension theory of symmetric operators as developed by M.G.Krein.