The Friedrichs extension of the Aharonov-Bohm Hamiltonian on a disc (Q2487160)

The Aharonov-Bohm Hamiltonian considered on a disk \(D\) is the operator \(H=(\nabla+i\mathbf{A})^{2}\), acting in \(L^{2}(D)\), where \(\nabla\) is the two-dimensional gradient on \(D\) and \(\mathbf{A}(x_{1},x_{2})=\alpha (\frac{x_{2}}{x_{1}^{2}+x_{2}^{2}},\frac{-x_{1}}{x_{1}^{2}+x_{2}^{2}})\), \((x_{1},x_{2})\in D\), with noninteger parameter \(\alpha\) being called the magnetic flux parameter. The authors show that the Hamiltonian considered on a disk has a four-parameter family of self-adjoint extensions. The proof is based on a decomposition of \(H\) into a direct sum expressed in terms of auxiliary singular Sturm-Liouville operators \(T^{(m)}\), where \(m\in\mathbb{Z}\) is the angular moment. Among the infinitely many such extensions, they determine to which parameter the Friedrichs extension \(H^{F}\) corresponds and find its lowest eigenvalue.