Selfadjointness and positivity of a certain partial differential operator associated with the Kerr metric in general relativity (Q917891)

The author studies the partial differential operator \(V=(\Delta /P)W\) in a space \(L_ 2(D,(P/\Delta)dr d\phi d \cos \theta)\), where \(W=\rho^ 2\mu^ 2-(\rho^ 4/P \sin^ 2 \theta)\partial^ 2_{\phi}- \partial_ r\Delta \partial_ r-(\sin \theta)^{-1} \partial_{\theta} \sin \theta \partial_{\theta},\rho^ 2=r^ 2+a^ 2 \cos^ 2\theta,\Delta =r^ 2+a^ 2-2Mr,\) \(P=(r^ 2+a^ 2)^ 2- a^ 2\Delta \sin^ 2\theta,\mu\) a and M are real parameters with \(M>| a|\), \(D=\{(x,y,z)\in {\mathbb{R}}^ 3\); \(r>r_ h\}\), \(r_ h\) is the larger root of \(\Delta =0\), r, \(\theta\), \(\phi\) are spherical coordinates. The domain of V is \(C^{\infty}_ 0(D)\). V may serve as a kind of Hamiltonian operator for the Klein-Gordon equation in the Kerr metric of general relativity. V is singular on the boundary of D. It is shown that V is essentially selfadjoint and positive, and 0 is not an eigenvalue of the selfadjoint closure of V. The problem of the essential selfadjointness of V is reduced to the problem of the essential selfadjointness of \(L=-\partial_ sp(s)\partial_ s\), \(p(s)=s^ 2/(s+r_ h)^ 2\), on \(C^{\infty}_ 0((0,\infty))\), which is a singular Sturm-Liouville problem.