When is a non-self-adjoint Hill operator a spectral operator of scalar type? (Q2506474)

The paper is concerned with a nonselfadjoint Hill operator \(H = - d / d x^{2} + V\) in \(L^{2} (\mathbb{R})\), where \(V\) is \(\pi\)-periodic and \(V \in L^{2} [0,\pi].\) The authors give necessary and sufficient conditions for \(H\) to be a spectral operator of scalar type. These conditions are formulated in terms of the fundamental solutions \(\theta (z,x), \phi (z,x)\) of the equation \[ -y'' + V (x) y = z y \] with the boundary conditions \[ \theta (z,0) = \phi ' (z,0) = 1,\quad \theta ' (z,0) = \phi (z,0) = 0. \] Thus, \(H\) is a spectral operator of scalar type if and only if the estimates \[ \biggl| \frac{\phi (\lambda,\pi)}{\Delta_{+}^{\bullet} (\lambda)} \biggl| \leq c, \;\biggl| \frac{\theta ' (\lambda,\pi)}{(\mid \lambda \mid + 1) \;\Delta_{+}^{\bullet}(\lambda)} \biggl| \leq c, \;\biggl| \frac{\Delta_{-} (\lambda)}{(\sqrt{\mid \lambda \mid} + 1) \Delta_{+}^{\bullet}(\lambda)} \biggl| \leq c \] hold for all \(\lambda \in \sigma (H)\) with a finite positive constant \(c,\) where \(\Delta_{\pm} (z) = [\theta (z,\pi) \pm \phi ' (z,\pi)] / 2, \;z \in C, \bullet \) denotes the derivative with respect to \(z\). Also, \(H\) is a spectral operator of scalar type if and only if the following conditions are satisfied: (i) The function \((\Delta_{+} (z)^{2} - 1 - \Delta_{-} (z)^{2}) / \phi (z,\pi) \Delta_{+}^{\bullet} (z)\) is analytic for \(z\) in an open neighborhood of \(\sigma (H);\) (ii) The inequalities \[ \biggl| \frac{\phi (\lambda,\pi)}{\Delta_{+}^{\bullet} (\lambda)} \biggl| \leq c, \;\;\biggl| \frac{\Delta_{-} (\lambda)}{(\sqrt{\mid \lambda \mid} + 1) \Delta_{+}^{\bullet}(\lambda)} \biggl| \leq c \] are satisfied for all \(\lambda \in \sigma (H)\) (\(c\) is a finite positive constant). Another criterion involves notions connected with the method of direct integral decompositions according to which the Hill operator \(H\) is decomposed in a family of operators \(H (t), t \in [0,2\pi]\), defined in \(L^{2} [0,\pi]\) by the differential expression \(-d^{2} / d x^{2} + q (x)\) restricted to \(x \in [0,\pi]\) and the boundary conditions \(y (\pi) = e^{it} y (0)\) and \(y ' (\pi) = e^{it} y ' (0)\).