Weak Symplectic Functional Analysis and General Spectral Flow Formula

Abstract: We consider a continuous curve of self-adjoint Fredholm extensions of a curve of closed symmetric operators with fixed minimal domain

D_{m}

and fixed {it intermediate} domain

D_{W}

. Our main example is a family of symmetric generalized operators of Dirac type on a compact manifold with boundary with varying well-posed boundary conditions. Here

D_{W}

is the first Sobolev space and

D_{m}

the subspace of sections with support in the interior. We express the spectral flow of the operator curve by the Maslov index of a corresponding curve of Fredholm pairs of Lagrangian subspaces of the quotient Hilbert space

D_{W} / D_{m}

which is equipped with continuously varying {it weak symplectic structures} induced by the Green form. In this paper, we specify the continuity conditions; define the Maslov index in weak symplectic analysis; discuss the required weak inner Unique Continuation Property; derive a General Spectral Flow Formula; and check that the assumptions are natural and all are satisfied in geometric and pseudo-differential context. Applications are given to

L^{2}

spectral flow formulae; to the splitting of the spectral flow on partitioned manifolds; and to linear Hamiltonian systems.

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