Abstract. Perturbations (r τ t ) t≥0 of the semigroup of shifts (τ t ) t≥0 on L 2 (R + ) are studied under the assumption that r τ t −τ t belongs to a certain Schatten-von Neumann class S p with p ≥ 1. It is shown that, for the unitary component in the WoldKolmogorov decomposition of the cogenerator of the semigroup (r τ t ) t≥0 , any singular spectral type may be achieved by S 1 -perturbations. An explicit construction is provided for a perturbation with a given spectral type, based on the theory of model spaces of the Hardy space H 2 . Also, it is shown that an arbitrary prescribed spectral type may be obtained for the unitary component of the perturbed semigroup by a perturbation of class S p with p > 1. §1. IntroductionConsider the isometric semigroup (τ t ) t≥0 of shifts on the space L 2 (R + ),In this paper we are concerned with perturbations (r τ t ) of the semigroup (τ t ) satisfying the following properties: (r τ t ) t≥0 is a strongly continuous semigroup of isometric operators on L 2 (R + ); the difference r τ t − τ t belongs to a certain Schatten-von Neumann ideal S p for every t > 0.The central problem considered in this paper is to describe all possible spectral types of perturbed isometric semigroups. The spectral type of a semigroup determines the semigroup uniquely up to unitary equivalence; it is defined by the spectral type of the cogenerator of the group (the definition can be found in §2). For p = 1, the stability of the absolutely continuous spectrum of the unitary dilation implies that the absolutely continuous parts of the cogenerators for the unitary dilations of the semigroups (τ t ) and (r τ t ) are unitarily equivalent (see §2 for the details). The cogenerator of the semigroup (τ t ) is unitarily equivalent to the unilateral shift operator on the Hardy space H 2 . Thus, for p = 1, our problem reduces to the description of all possible singular parts, and we show that any singular type may be realized by some semigroup (r τ t ) t≥0 . For p = 2, in [1,2] it was shown that any spectral type of the unitary component may occur; for the case of a singular spectral measure, a model of such perturbations was constructed. Here we show that similar results are valid for all p > 1.