On a theorem of Kac and Gilbert (Q557579)

Following \textit{I. S. Kac} [Sov. Math., Dokl. 3, 1035--1039 (1962); translation from Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 145, 510--513 (1962; Zbl 0131.31201); Izv. Akad. Nauk SSR Ser. Mat. 27, 1081--1112 (1963; Zbl 0238.34033), Erratum: ibid. 28, 951--952 (1964; Zbl 0238.34034)] and \textit{D. J. Gilbert} [Proc. R. Soc. Edinb., Sect. A 112, 213--229 (1989; Zbl 0678.34024); ibid. A 128, 549--584 (1998; Zbl 0909.34022)], it is known that the Schrödinger operator \(H = -\frac{d^2}{dx^2} + V(x)\) in \(L^2({\mathbb{R}})\) with fairly general potentials \(V(x)\) has simple singular spectrum, in strong contrast to the case of the absolutely continuous spectrum. The main result of the note under review is to give an operator-theoretic abstract result concerning this issue: Let \({\mathcal H} = {\mathcal K}_1 \oplus {\mathcal K}_2\) be a direct sum of two Hilbert spaces \({\mathcal K}_1\) and \({\mathcal K}_2\), and \(P: {\mathcal H}\rightarrow {\mathcal K}_1\) the canonical projection. Let \(A_j\) be a bounded selfadjoint operator on \({\mathcal K}_i\) for \(i =1,2\), and \(\varphi \in {\mathcal H}\) so that \(\varphi_1 =P \varphi\) and \(\varphi_2 =(I-P)\varphi\) are cyclic vectors for \(A_1\) and \(A_2\), respectively. Then for every nonzero real \(\lambda\), the operator \(C := A_1 \oplus A_2 + \lambda \langle \varphi, \cdot \rangle \varphi\) has simple singular spectrum. The result is extended to the case of unbounded selfadjoint operators and unitary operators. It is applied to get the above result of Kac and Gilbert.