Essential norm estimates of generalized weighted composition operators into weighted type spaces

Weighted composition operators appear in the study of dynamical systems and also in characterizing isometries of some classes of Banach spaces. One of the most important generalizations of weighted composition operators, are generalized weighted composition operators which in special cases of their inducing functions give different types of well-known operators like: weighted composition operators, composition operators, multiplication operators and composition operators followed by differentiation operators. In this paper we study generalized weighted composition operators and give estimates for the essential norm of such operators on certain Banach spaces of analytic functions into weighted type spaces. The underlying Banach spaces of analytic functions include Bloch spaces, Zygmund spaces and weighted type spaces. Our estimates for the essential norms of generalized weighted composition operators imply necessary and sufficient conditions for the compactness of such operators. As another application of our results, we obtain essential norm estimates of certain well-known operators which are special cases of generalized weighted composition operators.