Spectral analysis of transfer operators associated to Farey fractions (Q931058)

This paper deals with a particular family of signed generalized transfer operators \(\mathcal{P}_q^\pm\), \(q\) being a real or complex parameter, that are related to the Farey map on \([0,1]\): \[ F(x)=\left\{ \begin{matrix} \frac{x}{1-x} & \text{if \(0\leq x\leq 1/2\),}\cr \frac{1-x}{x} & \text{if \(1/2\leq x\leq 1\).}\cr \end{matrix} \right. \] The action of \(\mathcal{P}_q^\pm\) on a complex-valued function \(f\) defined on \([0,1]\) is a weighted sum over the values of \(f\) on the set \(F^{-1}(x)\) as follows: \[ \big(\mathcal{P}_q^\pm f\big)(x)=\left(\frac{1}{x+1}\right)^{2q} \left[f\left(\frac{x}{x+1}\right)\pm f\left(\frac{1}{x+1}\right)\right]. \] The authors prove that that for any \(q\in (0,\infty)\) there exists a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}_q\) of analytic functions on which the operators \(\mathcal{P}_q^\pm\) are bounded, self adjoint, iso-spectral and exhibit absolutely continuous spectrum and no non-zero point spectrum. The paper also discusses polynomial eigenfunctions when the parameter \(q\) is of the form \(q=-k/2\), \(k\) a non-negative integer.