On the structure of the essential spectrum of elliptic operators on metric spaces (Q630783)

The author considers metric measure spaces \((X,d,\mu)\) and operators in \(L^2(X,\mu)\). The metric spaces considered satisfy that {\parindent=7mm \begin{itemize}\item[(1)] each closed ball is compact, \item[(2)] \(\sup_{x\in X} \mu(B_x(r))<\infty\) for all \(r>0\), \item[(3)] \(\inf_{x\in X}\mu(B_x(1/2))>0\), and \item[(4)] for each \(\epsilon, r>0\), there exists \(\phi:X\to L^2(X,\mu)\) a Borel map with \(\|\phi(x)\|=1\) \(\text{supp}(\phi(x))\subset B_x(s)\) for some \(s\) independent of \(x\), and \(\|\phi(x)-\phi(y)\|<\epsilon\) if \(d(x,y)<r\). \end{itemize}} Such metric spaces are called \textit{class A} spaces. A class of integral operators in \(L^2(X,\mu)\) is defined. A kernel \(k\) is \textit{controlled} if there exists \(r>0\) such that \(d(x,y)>r\) implies \(k(x,y)=0\). Then \({\mathcal E}(X)\) is defined as the norm closure of the set of integral operators with kernel that is controlled, bounded and uniformly continuous. \({\mathcal E}(X)\) is called the elliptic algebra of \(X\). For each ultrafiler \(\chi\) in the set \(\delta(X)\) of ultrafilters of \(X\), which are finer than the Fréchet filter, an ideal \({\mathcal E}_{(\chi)}(X) \) is defined, \[ {\mathcal E}_{(\chi)}(X)=\{T\in {\mathcal E}(X): \lim_{x\to\chi}\|1_{B_x(r)}T\|=0, \hbox{ for all } r>0\} \] and the localization algebra \({\mathcal E}_{\chi}(X)\) of \({\mathcal E}(X)\) at \(\chi\) is constructed, \[ {\mathcal E}_{\chi}(X)={\mathcal E}(X)/{\mathcal E}_{(\chi)}(X). \] Denoting by \(\chi T\) the class of \(T\in{\mathcal E}(X)\) in this quotient, the author proves the following result. Theorem 2.5. If \(X\) is class A, then \[ \bigcap_{\chi\in\delta(X)}{\mathcal E}_{(\chi)}(X) =\hbox{ the compact operators of } L^2(X,\mu). \] In particular, if \(T\) is a normal operator, \[ \sigma_{ess}(T)=\overline{\bigcup_{\chi\in\delta(X)} \sigma(\chi T)}. \] This is a generalization, to the context of metric measure spaces, of a classical situation in Euclidean space \(X=\mathbb{R}^d\). If \(H\) is a self-adjoint (Hamiltonian) operator in \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^d, dx)\), an asymptotic Hamiltonian \(H_\chi\) is a limit (in the strong resolvent sense) of operators \(U_{a_n}HU_{-a_n}\), where \(U_af(x)=f(x+a)\), with \(|a_n|\to \infty\). Then for a large class of \(H\), \[ \sigma_{ess}(H)=\overline{\bigcup \sigma(H_\chi)}. \]