Spectral shift functions and Dirichlet-to-Neumann maps (Q1659916)

The authors provide an expression of the spectral shift function $\xi(\lambda)$ of a pair of self-adjoint operators $\{A,B\}$ in a separable Hilbert space $\mathfrak{H}$ via an abstract operator-valued Titchamarsh-Weyl $m$-function $M(\lambda)$ associated to a quasi boundary triple. More specifically, under suitable assumptions it is shown (see Theorem 4.1) that for any orthonormal basis $(\phi_j)_{j\in J}$ in a Hilbert space $\mathcal{G}$ and a.e. $\lambda\in\mathbb{R}$ it holds \[ xi(\lambda)=\sum_{j\in J}\lim_{\epsilon\downarrow0}\pi^{-1}\Big(\mathrm{Im}\big(\log\big(\overline{M(\lambda+i\epsilon)}\big)\big)\phi_j,\phi_j\Big)_\mathcal{G} \] and for any $z\in\rho(A)\cap\rho(B)$ the trace formula \[ \mathrm{tr}_{\mathfrak{H}}\big((B-zI_{\mathfrak{H}})^{-(2k+1)}-(A-zI_{\mathfrak{H}})^{-(2k+1)}\big)=-(2k+1)\int_{\mathbb{R}}\frac{\xi(\lambda)\,\mathrm{d}\lambda}{(\lambda-z)^{2k+2}} \] is valid. The proof of the main result is based on the study of the logarithm of operator-valued Nevanlinna (or Herglotz) function from Section 3. In Sections 5 and 6, the main result together with Dirichtel-to-Neumann maps is utilized to determine explicit forms of the spectral shift function for different self-adjoint realizations of the second order elliptic differential operators and Schrödinger operators.