Continuing a line of investigation initiated in [11] exploring the connections between Jost and Evans functions and (modified) Fredholm determinants of Birman-Schwinger type integral operators, we here examine the stability index, or sign of the first nonvanishing derivative at frequency zero of the characteristic determinant, an object that has found considerable use in the study by Evans function techniques of stability of standing and traveling wave solutions of partial differential equations (PDE) in one dimension. This leads us to the derivation of general perturbation expansions for analytically-varying modified Fredholm determinants of abstract operators. Our main conclusion, similarly in the analysis of the determinant itself, is that the derivative of the characteristic Fredholm determinant may be efficiently computed from first principles for integral operators with semi-separable integral kernels, which include in particular the general one-dimensional case, and for sums thereof, which latter possibility appears to offer applications in the multi-dimensional case. A second main result is to show that the multi-dimensional characteristic Fredholm determinant is the renormalized limit of a sequence of Evans functions defined in [23] on successive Galerkin subspaces, giving a natural extension of the one-dimensional results of [11] and answering a question of [27] whether this sequence might possibly converge (in general, no, but with renormalization, yes). Convergence is useful in practice for numerical error control and acceleration.
In the first (and abstract) part of this survey we prove the unitary equivalence of the inverse of the Krein--von Neumann extension (on the orthogonal complement of its kernel) of a densely defined, closed, strictly positive operator, $Sgeq varepsilon I_{mathcal{H}}$ for some $varepsilon >0$ in a Hilbert space $mathcal{H}$ to an abstract buckling problem operator. This establishes the Krein extension as a natural object in elasticity theory (in analogy to the Friedrichs extension, which found natural applications in quantum mechanics, elasticity, etc.). In the second, and principal part of this survey, we study spectral properties for $H_{K,Omega}$, the Krein--von Neumann extension of the perturbed Laplacian $-Delta+V$ (in short, the perturbed Krein Laplacian) defined on $C^infty_0(Omega)$, where $V$ is measurable, bounded and nonnegative, in a bounded open set $Omegasubsetmathbb{R}^n$ belonging to a class of nonsmooth domains which contains all convex domains, along with all domains of class $C^{1,r}$, $r>1/2$.
We study spectral properties for $H_{K,Omega}$, the Krein--von Neumann extension of the perturbed Laplacian $-Delta+V$ defined on $C^infty_0(Omega)$, where $V$ is measurable, bounded and nonnegative, in a bounded open set $Omegasubsetmathbb{R}^n$ belonging to a class of nonsmooth domains which contains all convex domains, along with all domains of class $C^{1,r}$, $r>1/2$. In particular, in the aforementioned context we establish the Weyl asymptotic formula [ #{jinmathbb{N} | lambda_{K,Omega,j}leqlambda} = (2pi)^{-n} v_n |Omega| lambda^{n/2}+Obig(lambda^{(n-(1/2))/2}big) {as} lambdatoinfty, ] where $v_n=pi^{n/2}/ Gamma((n/2)+1)$ denotes the volume of the unit ball in $mathbb{R}^n$, and $lambda_{K,Omega,j}$, $jinmathbb{N}$, are the non-zero eigenvalues of $H_{K,Omega}$, listed in increasing order according to their multiplicities. We prove this formula by showing that the perturbed Krein Laplacian (i.e., the Krein--von Neumann extension of $-Delta+V$ defined on $C^infty_0(Omega)$) is spectrally equivalent to the buckling of a clamped plate problem, and using an abstract result of Kozlov from the mid 1980s. Our work builds on that of Grubb in the early 1980s, who has considered similar issues for elliptic operators in smooth domains, and shows that the question posed by Alonso and Simon in 1980 pertaining to the validity of the above Weyl asymptotic formula continues to have an affirmative answer in this nonsmooth setting.
We prove the unitary equivalence of the inverse of the Krein--von Neumann extension (on the orthogonal complement of its kernel) of a densely defined, closed, strictly positive operator, $Sgeq epsilon I_{mathcal{H}}$ for some $epsilon >0$ in a Hilbert space $mathcal{H}$ to an abstract buckling problem operator. In the concrete case where $S=bar{-Delta|_{C_0^infty(Omega)}}$ in $L^2(Omega; d^n x)$ for $Omegasubsetmathbb{R}^n$ an open, bounded (and sufficiently regular) domain, this recovers, as a particular case of a general result due to G. Grubb, that the eigenvalue problem for the Krein Laplacian $S_K$ (i.e., the Krein--von Neumann extension of $S$), [ S_K v = lambda v, quad lambda eq 0, ] is in one-to-one correspondence with the problem of {em the buckling of a clamped plate}, [ (-Delta)^2u=lambda (-Delta) u text{in} Omega, quad lambda eq 0, quad uin H_0^2(Omega), ] where $u$ and $v$ are related via the pair of formulas [ u = S_F^{-1} (-Delta) v, quad v = lambda^{-1}(-Delta) u, ] with $S_F$ the Friedrichs extension of $S$. This establishes the Krein extension as a natural object in elasticity theory (in analogy to the Friedrichs extension, which found natural applications in quantum mechanics, elasticity, etc.).
We study generalized polar decompositions of densely defined, closed linear operators in Hilbert spaces and provide some applications to relatively (form) bounded and relatively (form) compact perturbations of self-adjoint, normal, and m-sectorial operators.
