This paper considers boundary value problems for a class of singular elliptic operators which appear naturally in the study of asymptotically anti-de Sitter (aAdS) spacetimes. These problems involve a singular Bessel operator acting in the normal dir
ection. After formulating a Lopatinskii condition, elliptic estimates are established for functions supported near the boundary. The Fredholm property follows from additional hypotheses in the interior. This paper provides a rigorous framework for mode analysis on aAdS spacetimes for a wide range of boundary conditions considered in the physics literature. Completeness of eigenfunctions for some Bessel operator pencils is shown.
We study bound states generated by a unique potential minimum in the situation where the system is strongly confined to a bounded region containing the minimum (by imposing Dirichlet boundary conditions). In this case the eigenvalues of the confined
system differ from those of the unconfined system by an exponentially small quantity in the semiclassical limit. An asymptotic expansion for this shift is established. The formulas are evaluated explicitly for the harmonic oscillator and an application to the Coulomb potential at a fixed angular momentum is given.
