Continuum limit for a discrete Hodge-Dirac operator on square lattices (Q6155977)

The paper investigates the convergence of a certain Hodge-Dirac operator \(D_h = d_h + d_h^\ast\) on the lattice \(h \mathbb{Z}^n\) to the continuous Hodge-Dirac operator on \(\mathbb{R}^n\) in the limit \(h\to 0\). The authors first introduce an abstract framework called ``combinatorial differential complexes'' \(X\) and associated exterior derivatives. These notions generalize simplicial complexes and their associated exterior derivatives. This concept allows them to consider \(h\mathbb{Z}^n\) as a combinatorial differential complex \(X(h \mathbb{Z}^n)\) of dimension \(n\) (as a simplicial complex, \(h\mathbb{Z}^n\) is a graph and has dimension \(1\)). Vaguely speaking, hypercubes of dimension \(j\) in the lattice \(h \mathbb{Z}^n\) correspond to faces of dimension \(j\) in the combinatorial differential complex \(X(h \mathbb{Z}^n)\). The associated exterior derivative \(d_h \colon \ell^2(X(h \mathbb{Z}^n)) \to \ell^2(X(h \mathbb{Z}^n))\) then gives rise to the Dirac operator \(D_h = d_h+ d_h^\ast\). The exterior derivative \(d_h\) is shown to be unitarily equivalent to a certain discrete Hodge-Dirac operator \(\tilde d_h = \sum_{j=0}^n \tilde d_{j,h}\) on \(\bigoplus_{j=0}^n \ell^2(h\mathbb{Z}^n; \bigwedge^j (h \mathbb{Z}^n))\), where each \(\tilde d_{j,h} \colon \ell^2(h\mathbb{Z}^n; \bigwedge^j (h \mathbb{Z}^n)) \to \ell^2(h\mathbb{Z}^n; \bigwedge^{j+1} (h \mathbb{Z}^n))\) is a discrete exterior derivative defined on a suitable space of discrete differential forms \(\ell^2(h\mathbb{Z}^n; \bigwedge^j (h \mathbb{Z}^n))\) of order \(j\). The authors then prove that, as \(h \to 0\), the discrete Hodge-Dirac operator \(D_h\) converges in a generalized norm resolvent sense to the Hodge-Dirac operator \(D = d +d^\ast\) on \(\bigoplus_{j=0}^n L^2(\mathbb{R}^n; \mathbb{C}^{\binom{n}{k}})\). Other versions of discrete Dirac operators are known to converge to their continuous counter-parts only in the (generalized) strong resolvent sense, see, e.g., [\textit{H. Cornean} et al., J. Spectr. Theory 12, No. 4, 1589--1622 (2022; Zbl 1530.47016)].