On form-sum approximations of singularly perturbed positive self-adjoint operators (Q1963854)

The authors deal with the abstract version of the problem on the perturbations of the Laplace operator in \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^3)\) by a point interaction. Given \(A\) a positive selfadjoint operator in a Hilbert space \({\mathcal H}\), consider singular perturbations formally given by \(A_T= A+T\) with \(T\) a singular positive operator, where that \(T\) is singular means that \(\text{Ker }T\) is dense in \({\mathcal H}\). The main result is: If \(T\) is strongly singular with respect to \(A\) in the sense that \(\text{Ker }T\) is dense in the Hilbert space, the domain \(D(A^{1/2})\) of \(A^{1/2}\) equipped with the graph norm, then any suitable approximation by positive operators \(T_n\) of \(T\), \(T_n\to T\), turns out to give a trivial result, namely, \(A_{T_n}\to A\) in the strong resolvent sense, where \(A_{T_n}\) is defined as a form sum of \(A\) and \(T_n\). The condition of positivity for \(T\) and \(T_n\) can be replaced by the condition that they have a finite rank. Applications also are given to perturbations of the Laplace operator \(-\Delta\) in \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^d)\) by a positive Radon measure \(\mu\) having support in a set \(N\) of Lebesgue measure zero in \(\mathbb{R}^d\). If \(N\) is of capacity zero, the form-sum approximation yields a trivial result, but otherwise, it can involve the regular component of a given perturbation in the Sobolev space \(W^{2,1}(\mathbb{R}^d)\).