Remarks on the Trotter-Kato product formula for unitary groups (Q538428)

It is a long standing problem whether, if \(A\) and \(B\) are non-negative selfadjoint operators in a separable Hilbert space, the strongly convergent Trotter product formula \[ s-\lim_{{n\rightarrow\infty}}(\exp^{-itA/n}\exp^{-itB/n})^n=\exp^{-itC} \] holds uniformly in \(t\in [0,T]\) for any \(T>0\), where \(C\) is the form sum of \(A\) and \(B\). In this article, the authors prove that, if \(C\) is densely defined, this result holds in the \(L^2\)-norm, that is, \(\lim_{n\rightarrow+\infty}\int_{-T}^{T}\|(\exp^{-itA/n}\exp^{-itB/n})^nh-\exp^{-itC}h\|_2^2\;dt=0\). In addition, using a reformulation of Vitali's classical theorem and Vitali's extended theorem, the authors generalize this result by extending it to the class of holomorphic Kato functions, to which the exponential functions belong. The authors also consider the class of admissible complex-valued functions to generalize Ichinose's result, that is, proving that \(s-\lim_{{n\rightarrow\infty}}(\phi(tA/n)\psi(tB/n)^n=\exp^{-itC}\), where \(\phi\) and \(\psi\) are admissible functions such that \(\Re e(\phi(y))\geq0\), \(\Im m(\phi(y))\leq0\) and \(\Im m(\psi(y))\leq0\) for \(y \in \mathbb{R}_{+}\). The authors start the paper with a very interesting brief survey of contributions toward the solution of the problem and end with a list of open problems on the Trotter-Kato product formula.