Relative zeta functions, relative determinants and scattering theory (Q1270345)

The paper under review provides a clear and rigorous treatment of determinants of elliptic selfadjoint operators on manifolds which are not necessarily compact. On a compact smooth manifold, the determinant of a self-adjoint elliptic operator \(A\) is defined in terms of the analytic continuation at \(s=0\) of its zeta function \[ \zeta(s;A)=\sum_{\lambda_j>0} \lambda_j^{-s}, \] where the \(\lambda_j\) are the eigenvalues of \(A\). More precisely, \(\det A=\exp[-\zeta'(0,A)]\). On a noncompact manifold such an operator has (in general) a continuous spectrum, and the above definition does not make sense. However, the author defines a relative zeta function \(\zeta(s;A,A_0)\), and then a relative determinant, via regularization of the Mellin transform of Tr\( (e^{-tA}-e^{-tA_0})\), where \(A_0\) is a reference operator. According to this approach, the operator \(e^{-tA}-e^{-tA_0}\) needs to be trace class, and its trace needs to have the correct behavior around \(t=0\) and \(t=\infty\). The small time case is usually handled by more or less standard asymptotic expansions via the parametrix construction. To analyze the case \(t\to\infty\), the author develops a scheme which involves Krein's theory of the spectral shift function \(\xi(\lambda,A,A_0)\), and which reduces the large \(t\) asymptotics to the ones of \(\xi(\lambda,A,A_0)\) near \(\lambda=0\). The main difficulties arise when the spectrum of \(A_0\) extends down to zero, in which case the author analyzes the behavior of the scattering matrix \(S(\lambda, A,A_0)\) near \(\lambda=0\). In the last section of the paper the author applies the results to various concrete and natural examples, such as Schrödinger operators, perturbations of Euclidean Laplacians, manifolds with cylindrical ends, and surfaces with hyperbolic ends.