On Schrödinger operators with multipolar inverse-square potentials (Q2456986)

The authors discuss the positivity, essential self-adjointness, and spectral properties of the Schrödinger operator \[ L_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}:=-\Delta-\sum^{k}_{i=1}\frac{\lambda_{i}}{|x-a_{i}|^{2}}\qquad\text{in}\quad L^{2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N}), \] where \(N\geq 3\), \(k\in{\mathbb{N}}\), \((\lambda_{1},\lambda_{2},\ldots,\lambda_{k})\in{\mathbb{R}}^{k}\), \((a_{1},a_{2},\ldots,a_{k})\in{\mathbb{R}}^{kN}\), \(a_{i}\neq a_{j}\) for \(i\neq j\). Let \({\mathcal D}^{1,2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\) be the completion of \(C^{\infty}_{c}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\) with respect to the Dirichlet norm \(\| u\|_{{\mathcal D}^{1,2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})}:=\|\nabla u\|_{L^{2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})}\). We introduce the quadratic form \[ Q_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}(u)=\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^{N}}|\nabla u(x)|^{2}\,dx-\sum^{k}_{i=1}\lambda_{i}\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^{N}}\frac{u^{2}(x)}{|x-a_{i}|^{2}}\,dx \] on \({\mathcal D}^{1,2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\), which is associated with \(L_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}\). The quadratic form \(Q_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}\) is said to be positive definite if there exists an \(\varepsilon>0\) such that \[ Q_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}(u)\geq\varepsilon\| u\|_{{\mathcal D}^{1,2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})} \] for all \(u\in{\mathcal D}^{1,2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\). The main results in this paper are stated as follows. Theorem. Let \((\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k})\in{\mathbb{R}}^{k}\). Then \[ \lambda_{i}<\frac{(N-2)^{2}}{4}\quad\text{for every}\quad i=1,\ldots,k\quad\text{and}\quad \sum^{k}_{i=1}\lambda_{i}<\frac{(N-2)^{2}}{4}\tag{1} \] is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a configuration of poles \(\{a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}\}\) such that the quadratic form\(Q_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}\) is positive definite. Theorem. Let \[ V(x)=\sum^{k}_{i=1}\lambda_{i}\frac{\chi_{B(a_{i},r_{i})}(x)}{|x-a_{i}|^{2}}+\lambda_{\infty}\frac{\chi_{{\mathbb{R}}^{N}\setminus B(0,R)}(x)}{|x|^{2}}+W(x), \] \(k\in{\mathbb{N}}\), \(r_{i},\,R\in(0,\infty)\), \(a_{i}\in{\mathbb{R}}^{N}\), \(a_{i}\neq a_{j}\) for \(i\neq j\), \(\lambda_{i},\,\lambda_{\infty}\in(-\infty,(N-2)^{2}/4)\), and \(W\in L^{N/2}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\cap L^{\infty}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\). Then the opetator \(-\Delta-V\) with the domain \(C_{c}^{\infty}({\mathbb{R}}^{N}\setminus\{a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}\})\) is essentially self-adjoint if and only if \[ \lambda_{i}\leq\frac{(N-2)^{2}}{4}-1\qquad\text{for all}\quad i=1,\ldots,k. \] Theorem. Let \((\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k})\in{\mathbb{R}}^{k}\) satisfy \((1)\). Then \[ \sum^{k}_{i=1}\max\{\lambda_{i},\,0\}>\frac{(N-2)^{2}}{4}\quad\text{and}\quad\sum^{k}_{i=1}\lambda_{i}<\frac{(N-2)^{2}}{4}-1 \] is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of at least a configuration of singularities \((a_{1},\ldots,a_{k})\in{\mathbb{R}}^{Nk}\), \(a_{i}\neq a_{j}\) for \(i\neq j\), such that \(0\) is an eigenvalue of the Friedrichs extension of \(L_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}\), namely there exists \(u\in H^{1}({\mathbb{R}}^{N})\setminus\{0\}\) solving \(L_{\lambda_{1},\ldots,\lambda_{k},a_{1},\ldots,a_{k}}u=0\).