Continuous eigenfunctions of the transfer operator for Dyson models (Q6974098)

One of the main results that the authors prove is the existence of a positive eigenfunction for certain operators. Specifically, let \(X=\{-1,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}\) where \(\mathbb{N}=\{0,1,2,\dots\}\). \(J:\mathbb{N}\to\mathbb{R}\), \(0\leq J(k)\), \(J(0)=0\). For \(x\in X\), \(\phi(x)=x_0\cdot\sum^\infty_{k=1}J(k)\cdot x_k\). The left shift operator \(T:X\to X\) is defined by \((x_i)\to (x_{i+1})\). Then, define \(\mathcal{L}f(x)=\sum_{y\in T^{-1}x}e^{\phi(y)}f(y)\), where \(f:X\to\mathbb{R}\) is a continuous function. Assuming a summability condition involving the function \(J\), the authors prove the existence of a positive continuous eigenfunction \(h\), \(\mathcal{L}h(x)=\lambda\cdot h(x)\) for a positive real number \(\lambda\) (Theorem 1 on page 2).\N\NAn outline of their proof is as follows. The starting point of their proof is a formula for a sequence of functions (Equation (7) on page 7) whose limiting function is the desired eigenfunction (Lemma 4 on page 7). The Schauder-Tychonoff theorem is invoked to establish their existence (last sentence in the paragraph above Theorem 1 on page 2). The FK-Ising representation (second paragraph in Subsection 2.3 on page 8) is used to rewrite this sequence of functions as sum over subgraphs on the graph \(\mathbb{N}\) (Lemma 5 on page 8 and the formula for the sequence of functions in the second sentence in the second paragraph in Subsection 2.4.3 on page 12). With this FK-Ising representation, a formula for the limiting function can be written (one equation after Equation (27) on page 12). With this formula, the difference between the sequence of functions and its limit can be estimated. The summability condition in the statement of Theorem 1 is used to prove that a certain integral is finite (Lemma 6 on page 10). With this finiteness result, the difference between the sequence of functions and its limit is shown to go to zero uniformly (last inequality in Subsection 2.4.3 on page 13), and the existence of the positive continuous eigenfunction is established.