Unitary part of a contraction

For a contraction A on a Hilbert space H, we define the index j(A) (resp., k(A)) as the smallest nonnegative integer j (resp., k) such that ker(I−Aj∗Aj) (resp., ker(I−Ak*Ak)∩ker(I−AkAk∗)) equals the subspace of H on which the unitary part of A acts. We show that if , then j(A)⩽n (resp., k(A)⩽⌈n/2⌉), and the equality holds if and only if A is of class Sn (resp., one of the three conditions is true: (1) A is of class Sn, (2) n is even and A is completely nonunitary with ‖An−2‖=1 and ‖An−1‖<1, and (3) n is even and A=U⊕A′, where U is unitary on a one-dimensional space and A′ is of class Sn−1).