Singular parts of contractive analytic operator functions

One considers the class _G of holomorphic functions in a domain G, whose values are contractions in a separable Hilbert space. It is proved that if T(·)_G, T(z₀) is a weak contraction, its singular part T^s(z₀) is complete, and the increments T(z)–T(z₀) are not too large (for example, finite-dimensional), then the operator T^s(z₀) is complete for almost all zG. If, however, T(z₀) is, in addition, completely nonunitary and satisfies definite smoothness conditions, then in the nontrivial case the spectrum [z] of the contraction T^s(z) (zG) is a thin set: The proof of the mentioned results is based on the investigation of the formulas obtained in the paper, connecting the characteristic functions of the contractions T(z) for different values of zG.Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova AN SSSR, Vol. 157, pp. 30–44, 1987.