On a minimax principle in spectral gaps (Q2114383)

The minimax values \(\lambda_k(A)\) of a lower semibounded operator \(A\) on a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\) are defined to be \(\lambda_k(A)=\inf_{\mathcal{M}\subset \mathrm{Dom}(A);\dim(\mathcal{M})=k}\sup _{x\in\mathcal{M}; \|x\|=1}<x,Ax>\). These values are known to represent the eigenvalues below the essential spectrum of \(A\) in nondecreasing order with multiplicities counted. Consequently, one can show that, for two lower semibounded self-adjoint operators \(A\) and \(B\) with \(A \le B\) in the sense of quadratic forms, \(\lambda_k(A) \le \lambda_k(B)\) for all \(k\). We now define \(A_+\) to be the part of A associated with its spectrum in an interval of the form \((\gamma, \infty)\), \(\gamma \in \mathbb{R}\). Then the minimax values for \(A_+\) still describe the eigenvalues of \(A\) in \((\gamma,\infty)\) below the essential spectrum of \(A\) above \(\gamma\). However, comparing minimax values in spectral gaps of two different operators moves to another level. The reason is that the infimum is taken over the subspaces within the spectral subspace associated with the interval \((\gamma,\infty)\), which is determined by the operator, not the domain. This paper is intended to address this problem in the context of perturbations that are off-diagonal with respect to the spectral gap. The work here is based on the minimax principle for eigenvalues in spectral gap established by \textit{M. Griesemer} et al. [Doc. Math. 4, 275--283 (1999; Zbl 1115.47300)].