Some properties of eigenfunctions of linear pencils (Q1812734)

Let \(E\) be a Hilbert space, \(B\) a selfadjoint operator in \(E\) and \(L\) a symmetric operator which is positive on a complement of a finite- dimensional subspace. The spectral problem \(Lu=\lambda Bu\) is considered in an interpolation scale of Hilbert spaces \(H_ s\) (\(s\in[-1,1]\)), associated with this problem, where \(H_ 1\) is the form domain of the Friedrichs extension of \(L\) and \(H_ 1\) is embedded in \(H_{-1}\). Under an appropriate positivity assumption on \(L\), and compactness assumption on \(B\) and an additional assumption on the scale \(H_ s\), it is shown that the normalized eigenfunctions of the eigenvalue problem in \(H_ 1\) form a Riesz basis in the space \(H_ 0\), which is the completion of \(E\) with respect to the norm \(\| | B|^{1/2} u\|\). The abstract theory is applied to the case where \(L\) is a (possibly degenerate) elliptic operator on a bounded domain \(\Omega\) and \(B\) is the operator of multiplication by a function \(g\); the space \(E\) is \(L^ 2(\Omega)\). Both \(g\) and \(1/g\) can be unbounded; the zero set of \(g\) is assumed to be a smooth manifold of dimension \(n-1\). The verification of the assumptions from the abstract theory is only partly performed; certain assumptions reduce to embedding and compactness theorems for function spaces which are not known in the desired generality; therefore some of the assumptions on the function \(g\) and the coefficients of \(L\) are implicit. The conclusion is that the eigenfunctions form a Riesz basis in the space \(L_{| g|}^ 2\) and moreover (under certain conditions) in some weighted Sobolev spaces.