Canonical systems with discrete spectrum (Q2281169)

The authors study spectral properties of two-dimensional canonical systems \[y'(t) = zJH(t)y(t),\qquad t\in [a,b),\] where the Hamiltonian \(H\) is locally integrable on \([a,b)\), positive semidefinite, and Weyl's limit point case takes place at \(b\). They characterize discreteness of the spectrum of the selfadjoint model operator \(A_{[H]}\) associated with the aforementioned canonical system. In connection with this characterization they prove a significant result that states that a Hamiltonian is the structure Hamiltonian of some de Branges space \(\mathcal{H}(E)\), where \(E\) is a Hermite-Biehler function, if and only if the operator \(A_{[\tilde{H}]}\) associated with the reversed Hamiltonian \[ \tilde{H}(t) := \begin{pmatrix} 1& 0\\ 0& -1 \end{pmatrix}H(-t) \begin{pmatrix} 1& 0\\ 0& -1 \end{pmatrix}, \quad t\in [a,b) \] has discrete spectrum. Also, when the spectrum of \(A_{[H]}\) is discrete they found its asymptotic distribution in terms of the diagonal entries of \(H\).