On Schrödinger operators with inverse square potentials on the half-line (Q517417)

In the present paper it is considered operators given by the expession \(-\partial^2_x+(\alpha-1/4)\frac{1}{x^2}\). This expression is homogeneous of degree minus 2. It turns out that if one realizes it as a self-adjoint operator for real \(\alpha\), or closed operator for complex \(\alpha\), one can observe that this homogeneity can be broken. This observation leads to a definition of two holomorphic families of closed operators on \(L^2(\mathbb R_+)\), which are denoted by \(H_{m,\kappa}\) and \(H^{\nu}_0\), with \(m^2=\alpha\), \(-1<\mathbb R(m)<1\), and here \(k,\nu\in \mathbb C\cup\{\infty\}\) specify the boundary condition at 0. The authors study these operators using their explicit solvability in terms of Bessel-type functions and the Gamma function. In particular, it is established that their point spectrum has a curious shape: a string of eigenvalues on a piece of a spiral. Their continuous spectrum is always \([0,\infty)\). Restricted to their continuous spectrum, these operators are diagonalized by means of a generalization of the Hankel transformation. The perturbations of these operators are studies as well. It turns our that these operators are usually non-self-adjoint, but nevertheless, it is possible to use concepts typical for the self-adjoint case to study them.