Continuous domain dependence of the eigenvalues of the Dirichlet Laplacian and related operators in Hilbert space (Q1306268)

For a bounded open subset \(\Omega\) of \(\mathbb{R}^N\) let \(\lambda_n\) denote the \(n\)th eigenvalue of the Laplace operator with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. For an increasing sequence of bounded open sets \(D_i\subseteq \mathbb{R}^N\) with bounded union \(D\) it is known that \[ \lim_{i\to\infty} \lambda_n(D_i)= \lambda_n(D),\quad n\in\mathbb{N}. \] For a decreasing sequence of bounded open sets \(D_i\) the analoguous result with the union replaced by the interior of the intersection \(D= \text{int }\bigcap_i D_i\) is not true in general. In this interesting article it is shown that this result holds true for a decreasing sequence of bounded open sets \(D_i\) if and only if \[ W^{1,2}_0(D)= \bigcap_i W^{1,2}_0(D_i), \] which in turns amounts to \(\bigcap_i D_i\) being stable in the Keldyš sense. To verify this result, an abstract Hilbert space version of the stated results is proved, which applies to order convergent sequences of subspaces. Specialization of this theorem yields the result for the operator \(\Delta^m\). Additional convergence results for the spectral measure and for the inverse of \(\Delta^m\) are shown to hold, and criteria guaranteeing the stability of \(\bigcap_i D_i\) are shortly discussed.