We introduce a new class of Hardy spaces Hφ(⋅,⋅)(Rn), called Hardy spaces of Musielak-Orlicz type, which generalize the
Hardy-Orlicz spaces of Janson and the weighted Hardy spaces of Garc\'ia-Cuerva,
Str\"omberg, and Torchinsky. Here, φ:Rn×[0,∞)→[0,∞) is a function such that φ(x,⋅) is an Orlicz function
and φ(⋅,t) is a Muckenhoupt A∞ weight. A function f
belongs to Hφ(⋅,⋅)(Rn) if and only if its maximal
function f∗ is so that x↦φ(x,∣f∗(x)∣) is integrable. Such a
space arises naturally for instance in the description of the product of
functions in H1(Rn) and BMO(Rn) respectively (see
\cite{BGK}). We characterize these spaces via the grand maximal function and
establish their atomic decomposition. We characterize also their dual spaces.
The class of pointwise multipliers for BMO(Rn) characterized by
Nakai and Yabuta can be seen as the dual of L1(Rn)+Hlog(Rn) where Hlog(Rn) is the Hardy space of
Musielak-Orlicz type related to the Musielak-Orlicz function
θ(x,t)=log(e+∣x∣)+log(e+t)t. Furthermore, under
additional assumption on φ(⋅,⋅) we prove that if T is a
sublinear operator and maps all atoms into uniformly bounded elements of a
quasi-Banach space B, then T uniquely extends to a bounded
sublinear operator from Hφ(⋅,⋅)(Rn) to B. These results are new even for the classical Hardy-Orlicz spaces on
Rn.Comment: Integral Equations and Operator Theory (to appear