This talk discusses the ideal membership problem in $H^\infty$ on the unit disc. Given functions $f,f_1,\ldots,f_n$ in $H^\infty$, we seek sufficient conditions on the size of $f$ in order for $f$ to belong to the ideal of $H^\infty$ generated by $f_1,\ldots,f_n$. We provide a different proof of a theorem of Treil, which gives the sharpest known sufficient condition. To this end, we solve a closely related problem in the Hilbert space $H^2$, which is equivalent to the ideal membership problem by the Nevanlinna--Pick property of $H^2$.

This talk is based on joint work with Michael Hartz.