The numerical range of non-negative operators in Krein spaces (Q1938710)

Let \(A\) be densely defined selfadjoint operator acting in a Krein space \(({\mathcal K}, [\cdot, \cdot])\) (\(A=A^{+}\), where \(A^{+}\) is the adjoint of \(A\) with respect to the Krein space inner product). If the resolvent set \(\rho (A)\neq \emptyset\) and \([Ax, x]\geq 0\) for all \(x\in \mathrm{dom} A\), then \(A\) is called \textit{non-negative}. The authors study the numerical range \(W(A)=\{\frac{[Ax,x]}{[x,x]}: x\in \mathrm{dom} A\), \([x,x]\neq 0\}\) and the so-called \textit{co-numerical range} \(W_{co}(A)\) of \(A\), defined as follows: \( W_{co}(A)=\{\frac{[Ax,Ax]}{[Ax,x]}: x\in \mathrm{dom} A, Ax \neq 0\}\). The spectrum \(\sigma (A) \) of a non-negative operator \(A\) is real, and it is proved that, for indefinite \({\mathcal K}\) and \(A\neq 0\), the sets \(W(A)\cap (-\infty, 0)\) and \(W(A)\cap (0, \infty )\) are convex and unbounded; in some cases \(W(A)\) does not provide any information on the location of \(\sigma (A)\) except for the inclusion \(\sigma (A) \subset \overline{W(A)}\). In contrast to the numerical range, the co-numerical range of \(A\) is always bounded above (from below) if the spectrum of \(A\) is bounded from above (from below, respectively). With the exception of a very special case, its closure also contains \(\sigma (A)\) and \(\sigma (A) \subset \overline{W(A)\cap W_{co}(A)}\). If zero is not an isolated eigenvalue of \(A\) or if both \(W(A)\cap (-\infty, 0)\) and \(W(A)\cap (0, \infty )\) are nonempty, then \(\overline{W_{co}(A)}=[\min \sigma(A),\max \sigma (A)]\).