Explicit and almost explicit spectral calculations for diffusion operators (Q1019702)

The diffusion operator defined either on \(\mathbb{R}^+=(0,\infty)\) with the Dirichlet boundary condition at \(x=0\), or on \(\mathbb{R}\), can be realized as a self-adjoint operator with respect to the density, which is unitarily equivalent to a Schrödinger-type operator. In this paper, an explicit criterion for the existence of a compact resolvent and explicit formulas up to the multiplicative constant \(4\) for the infimum of the spectrum and for the infimum of the essential spectrum of these operators are obtained. Some applications are given which show how the infimum of the spectrum of the diffusion operator scales when the parameters are changed. Applications to self-adjoint multi-dimensional diffusion operators are also involved.