A Jost-Pais-type reduction of Fredholm determinants and some applications (Q2249220)

Let \(\mathcal H\), \(\mathcal H_{1}\), \(\mathcal H_{2}\) be complex separable Hilbert spaces. The authors introduce \(\mathcal H\)-valued kernels of the form \[ K(x,x')= \begin{cases} F_{1}(x)G_{1}(x'),&a<x'<x<b,\\ F_{2}(x)G_{2}(x'),&a<x<x'<b, \end{cases} \] where \(-\infty\leq a<b\leq \infty\), \(F_{j}(x)\in{\mathcal B}({\mathcal H_{j}},{\mathcal H})\), \(G_{j}(x)\in{\mathcal B}({\mathcal H},{\mathcal H_{j}})\) for almost all \(x\in(a,b)\), \(F_{j}(\cdot)\), \(G_{j}(\cdot)\) are measurable with respect to the uniform topology and belong to the corresponding spaces of \(L_{2}\)-summable operator-valued functions on \((a,b)\). Let \(\mathbf K\) be the integral operator in \(L^{2}((a,b);{\mathcal H})\) generated by the previous kernel. Suppose that \(\mathbf K\) is the trace class operator. The main result of the paper reduces the Fredholm determinants of \({\mathbf I}-\alpha {\mathbf K}\), \(\alpha \in \mathbb C\), acting on \(L^{2}((a,b);{\mathcal H})\), to some Fredholm determinants in the spaces \(\mathcal H\) and \({\mathcal H}_{1}\oplus {\mathcal H}_{2}\). The authors apply this theory to Schrödinger operators with bounded operator-valued potentials. The paper contains an alternative approach to a trace formula first established by \textit{A. Pushnitski} [Adv. Math. Sci. 62, 141--155 (2008; Zbl 1168.47010)]. The appendix contains some recent results on the spectral theory for Schrödinger operators with bounded operator-valued potentials.