Signature and spectral flow of \(J\)-unitary \(\mathbb S^1\)-Fredholm operators (Q2445449)

Let \((K,J)\) be a Krein space. A bijective operator \(T\in B(K)\) preserving the indefinite scalar product \(\langle v,w\rangle=v^*Jw\) is called \(S^1\)-Fredholm if \(T-z\operatorname{\mathbf{1}}\) is Fredholm for all \(z\in S^1\), and essentially \(S^1\)-gapped if there is only discrete spectrum in \(S^1\); the sets of such operators are denoted here as \(FU(K,J)\) and \(GU(K,J)\), respectively. For \(T\in GU(K,J)\), the author shows that a certain signature of \(T\) relative to \(J\) is a homotopy invariant that splits \(GU(K,J)\) in disjoint open components (this decomposition is nontrivial only in infinite dimension). For \(T\in FU(K,J)\), a unitary operator \(V(T)\) is constructed such that the eigenvectors of \(T,V(T)\) for \(\lambda=1\) have the same multiplicity, and \(1\) is not in the essential spectrum of \(V(T)\). This allows to construct a spectral flow for paths \(t\mapsto V(T_t)\) through \(1\) that works as an intersection index, counting the periodic solutions \(\phi_t\) of \(T_t\phi_t=\phi_t\) along the path. The paper has a final section with numerous examples illustrating the notions introduced, and an appendix with several sections with an overview of some classical results on operator theory related to the index and the spectral flow.