\(M\) operators: A generalisation of Weyl--Titchmarsh theory (Q596224)

Recent work has demonstrated that the Weyl function is a powerful tool for the spectral analysis of selfadjoint extensions of symmetric operators \(A\) even if the deficiency indices \(n_\pm(A)\) of \(A\) are infinite (for finite deficiency indices this had already been shown by Weyl). Let us briefly recall the basic construction. \(\Pi=\{{\mathcal H},\Gamma_0, \Gamma_1\}\) is a boundary triple for the adjoint \(A^*\) of \(A\) if \({\mathcal H}\) is an auxiliary Hilbert space with dimension \(n_+(A)\) and \(\Gamma_i:\text{dom} (A^*)\to {\mathcal H}\), \(i=0,1\), are linear mappings such that the equation \(\Gamma_0f=x\), \(\Gamma_1f=y\), has a solution \(f\) for all \(x,y\in{\mathcal H}\) and the second Green's formula takes place: \[ (A^*f,g)- (f,A^*g) =(\Gamma_1f,\Gamma_0g) -(\Gamma_0f, \Gamma_1 g), \quad f,g\in\text{dom} (A^*). \] For every selfadjoint extension \(A_0\) of \(A\) there exists a boundary triple \(\Pi= \{{\mathcal H}, \Gamma_0,\Gamma_1\}\) such that \(A_0=A^*\lceil \ker\Gamma_0\). The corresponding Weyl function \(M(\cdot)\) is determined by \[ \Gamma_1 f_z=M(z) \Gamma_0f_z,\quad f_z\in\ker(A^*-z),\quad \text{Im} (z)>0. \] If one wants to apply the mentioned recent general results in concrete problems then the problem arises to find explicite expressions for the boundary triples and the Weyl functions. The article provides solutions to this problem for partial differential operators of the form \(-\Delta+q\) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). As auxiliary Hilbert space \({\mathcal H}\) one chooses the space \(L^2(S_1)\) where \(S_1\) denotes the unit sphere in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). One defines various functions \(M(z)\) in terms of solutions of boundary value problems both for the exterior domain \(\Omega=\{x : | x|> 1\}\) and the interior domain. Let us illustrate this via one of the classes of \(M\)-functions introduced in the paper. Given any bounded linear operator \(B\) on \(L_2(S_1)\) with \(\text{Im}(B)\leq 0\) the operator \(M_B(z): L^2(S_1)\to L^2(S_1)\) is defined by \[ M_B(z)v=-w, \] where \(w\) is the trace of \(f\) on \(S_1\) and \(f\) is the unique solution (within a special function space described in detail in the article) of \(-\Delta f+qf-zf=0\), subject to the boundary condition \(\gamma_1\partial f/ \partial n-B\gamma_1 f=v(\gamma_1f\) denotes the trace of \(f\) on \(S_1)\). By using the explicite expressions for \(M(z)\), higher dimensional analogues of a number of the fundamental results of standard Weyl-Titchmarsh theory are obtained.