Stability of operators and operator semigroups (Q1036122)

The main subject of the present monograph are the various concepts of stability for linear operator systems. The author treats both the discrete and the continuous case, and has minimized the overlaps with the known monographs [\textit{J.\,van Neerven}, ``The asymptotic behaviour of semigroups of linear operators'' (Operator Theory: Advances and Applications 88; Basel: Birkhäuser) (1996; Zbl 0905.47001); \textit{V.\,Müller}, ``Spectral theory of linear operators and spectral systems in Banach algebras'' (2nd ed.) (Operator Theory: Advances and Applications 139; Basel: Birkhäuser) (2007; Zbl 1208.47001)]. Chapter I gives a survey of the functional analytic tools used later. These are the decomposition theorems of Jacobs-Glicksberg-de Leeuw for compact semigroups, the notion of the cogenerator for co-semigroups, and the Laplace inversion formula. In Chapter II, the behavior of the powers of a bounded linear operator on a Banach space is investigated. Based on its resolvent behavior near the unit circle, the resolvent characterization for power boundedness on Hilbert space using its \(L^2\)-norm on circles of radius greater than 1, the notions of polynomial boundedness, strong and weak stability are discussed and the concept of almost weak stability is introduced together with various equivalence conditions. The subjects of Chapter III are the boundedness and stability of \(C_0\)-semigroups on Banach spaces in terms of the spectrum and resolvent of its generator; the uniform exponential stability of \(C_0\)-semigroups; strong and weak stability in terms of the resolvent of the generator; almost weak stability with various equivalent conditions and examples of an almost weakly but not weakly stable semigroup; the characterization of stability and boundedness of \(C_0\)-semigroups on Hilbert spaces via Lyapunov equations. The parallels with the discrete case are successively carried out. Chapter IV relates the suggested stability concepts to weakly and strongly mixing transformations and flows in ergodic theory and makes use of the spectral theorem for Rajchman and non-Rajchman measures in harmonic analysis [cf.\ \textit{R.\,Lyons}, ``Seventy years of Rajchman measures'', J.~Fourier Anal.\ Appl.\ Spec.\ Iss., 363--377 (1995; Zbl 0886.43001)]. Here, the author connects the stability of operators and \(C_0\)-semigroups with analogous notions in harmonic analysis and ergodic theory. In the last section, ``typical'' behaviour of contractive operators and semigroups on Hilbert spaces is described with the help of the rigidity notion, extending the relevant results of Chapters II and III. In Chapter V, analogies between discrete systems \(\{T^n\}_{n=0}^{\infty}\) and continuous systems \((T(t))_{t \geq 0}\) are successively worked out, beginning with the question: for which operators \(T\) exists a \(C_0\)-semigroup \((T(t))_{t \geq 0}\) with \(T=T(1)\)? Spectral conditions for embeddability are discussed and classes of examples for which such a \(C_0\)-semigroup does or does not exist are described. Nonetheless, this general embedding question is still open, together with its analogues in ergodic and measure theory. Further, to each continuous system a bounded operator -- the cogenerator introduced in Section I.3 -- is associated. Here, it is shown that many asymptotic properties of the continuous system are reflected by analogous ones for the discrete powers of this cogenerator. For Hilbert spaces, there are many similarities between the asymptotic properties of these two systems. The author indicates here classic and recent results, together with a discussion of difficulties, examples and open problems.