A spectral representation for spin-weighted spheroidal wave operators with complex aspherical parameter (Q283277)

The spin-weighted spheroidal wave equation arises in the study of electromagnetic, gravitational and neutrino-field perturbations of rotating black holes when separating variables in the so-called Teukolsky master equation. In the spin-weighted spheroidal wave equation, the spin of the wave enters as a parameter \(s \in \{0, \frac{1}{2}, 1, \frac{3}{2}, 2, \dots\}\). The authors are mainly interested in the cases \(s=1\) of an electromagnetic and \(s=2\) of a gravitational field. If \(s\) is an integer, the spin-weighted wave equation is the eigenvalue equation \[ A \Psi =\lambda \Psi,\tag{1} \] where the spin-weighted spheroidal wave operator \(A\) is an elliptic operator with smooth coefficients on the unit sphere \(S^{2}\). More specifically, choosing polar coordinates \(v \in (0, \pi)\) and \(\varphi \in (0, 2\pi)\), \(A\) has the form \[ A=-\frac{\partial}{\partial \cos v} \sin^{2} \frac{\partial} {\partial \cos v}+\frac{1}{\sin^{2}v}\left(\Omega \sin^{2}v+i\frac{\partial}{\partial \varphi}-s\cos v\right)^{2}, \] where \(\Omega \in \mathbb{C}\) is the \textit{aspherical parameter}. As the spin-weighted spheroidal wave operator is axisymmetric, we can separate out the \(\varphi\)-dependence with a plane wave ansatz, \[ \Psi(v, \varphi)=e^{-ik\varphi}\Theta(v) \quad \text{with} \quad k \in \mathbb{Z}. \] Then \(A\) becomes the ordinary differential operator \[ A_{k}:=-\frac{\partial}{\partial \cos v} \sin^{2} \frac{\partial} {\partial \cos v}+\frac{1}{\sin^{2}v}\left(\Omega \sin^{2}v+k-s\cos v\right)^{2}. \tag{2} \] This operator acts on vectors in \(H\) with prescribed \(\Phi\)-dependence, which we denote by \(H_{k}\), \[ H_{k}:=L^{2}(S^{2})\cap\{e^{-ik \varphi} \Theta(v) \mid \Omega: (0, \pi) \rightarrow \mathbb{C}\}. \] The domain of definition reduces to \[ D(A_{k})=C^{\infty}(S^{2}) \cap H_{k}. \] The Hilbert space \(H_{k}\) can be identified with \[ H_{k}=L^{2}((0,\pi) \sin v\,dv). \] Also, one can consider \(A_{k}\) as an ordinary differential operator on this Hilbert space, for example with the domain of definition \(C^{\infty}((0,\pi) \cap L^{2} (0, \pi))\). However, when doing so, one still needs to specify boundary conditions at \(v=0,\pi\). In Section 2, it is explained in detail that the correct boundary conditions are that the limits \[ \lim_{v \rightarrow 0, \pi} \Theta(v) \] must exist. In Section 3, the authors explain qualitatively how the spectrum of the angular operator looks and how this qualitative behavior can be understood. Section 4 is devoted to an overview of the proof of the main theorem. In Section 5, the authors collect general statements on Sturm-Liouville operators with complex potential. In Section 6, they introduce a useful method for analyzing the oscillatory behavior of solutions of the Sturm-Liouville equation. These estimates are worked out in Section 7. In Section 8, the authors employ the method of slightly non-selfadjoint perturbations to obtain the desired spectral representation provided that \(\Omega\) lies in bounded set. In Section 9, an a priori estimate for the imaginary parts of all eigenvalues is derived. This a priori estimate is needed in order to distinguish the different cases and regions. In Section 10, the authors give an overview of the different cases and regions and explain how to locate the spectrum. The detailed estimates are worked out in Section 11. Section 12 gives refined integral estimates of the imaginary part of the potential. In order to show that the Jordan chains have length at most two, the authors show that if \(\lambda_{0}\) is an eigenvalue, then there is an annular region around \(\lambda_{0}\) which contains at most one other eigenvalue. In order to construct this annular region, they differentiate the equations with respect to \(\lambda\) and use an implicit function argument. The \(\lambda\)-derivatives are computed and estimated in Section 13. The construction of the annular regions is given in Section 14. Section 15 is devoted to estimates of the Green's function. In Section 16, the authors continuously deform the potential from a real potential to the complex potential. Combining all the results from the previous sections, the authors can track the eigenvalues and control the spectral gaps. The uniform norm estimates for the operators \(Q_{n}\) are also derived and it is shown that their sum converges strongly to the identity.