Spectra of multiplication operators in Sobolev spaces (Q844014)

For a set \(X\), let \(M_d(X)\) be the set of all \(d\times d\) matrices with entries in \(X\) and let \(\mathcal{L}(X)\) denote the set of measurable functions on \(X\). Let \(\Omega\) be a connected open subset of \({\mathbb R}^n\). Consider a \(d\times d\) matrix function \(\hat{A}\) over \(\Omega\) and assume that \(\hat{A}\in M_d(\mathcal{L}(\Omega))\). The associated operator \(A:\,[W^{k,p}(\Omega)]^d\to[W^{l,q}(\Omega)]^d\) is the maximal operator of the multiplication defined by \[ \begin{aligned} D(A)&=\big\{f\in[W^{k,p}(\Omega)]^d:\,\hat{A}f\in[W^{l,q}(\Omega)]^d\big\},\\ (Af)(x)&=\hat{A}(x)f(x),\quad f\in D(A),\quad x\in\Omega, \end{aligned} \] where \(W^{k,p}(\Omega)\) and \(W^{l,q}(\Omega)\) are Sobolev spaces, \(1\leq p,q\leq\infty\), and \(k,l\) are nonnegative integers. In this paper, the authors show that if \(p<\infty\), \(k+1\geq2\lfloor\frac{n}{p}+1\rfloor\) (where \(\lfloor\frac{n}{p}+1\rfloor\) denotes the maximal integer no more than \(\frac{n}{p}+1\)), \(\Omega\) is bounded with locally Lipschitz boundary, \(\hat{A}\in M_d(W^{k,p}(\Omega))\) and \(A:\,[W^{k,p}(\Omega)]^d\to[W^{k,p}(\Omega)]^d\), then (i) \(\lambda\in\sigma_p(A)\) if and only if \(\Gamma^\lambda=\{x\in\Omega:\,\det(\hat{A}(x)-\lambda I)=0\}\) has an interior point; (ii) \(\lambda\in\sigma_r(A)\) if and only if either \(\Gamma^\lambda\) has no interior point but \(\mu(\Gamma^\lambda)>0\) or \(\mu(\Gamma^\lambda)=0\), but \((\hat{A}-\lambda)^{-1}\) is not essentially bounded; (iii) \(\sigma_c(A)=\emptyset\).