Abstract interpolation in vector-valued de Branges-Rovnyak spaces

Following ideas from the Abstract Interpolation Problem of Katsnelson et al. (Operators in spaces of functions and problems in function theory, vol 146, pp 83-69, Naukova Dumka, Keiv, 1987) for Schur class functions, we study a general metric constrained interpolation problem for functions from a vector-valued de Branges-Rovnyak space $\mathcal{H}(K_S)$ associated with an operator-valued Schur class function $S$. A description of all solutions is obtained in terms of functions from an associated de Branges-Rovnyak space satisfying only a bound on the de Branges-Rovnyak-space norm. Attention is also paid to the case that the map which provides this description is injective. The interpolation problem studied here contains as particular cases (1) the vector-valued version of the interpolation problem with operator argument considered recently in Ball et al. (Proc Am Math Soc 139(2), 609-618, 2011) (for the nondegenerate and scalar-valued case) and (2) a boundary interpolation problem in $\mathcal{H}(K_S)$. In addition, we discuss connections with results on kernels of Toeplitz operators and nearly invariant subspaces of the backward shift operator.