Direct and inverse spectral theorems for a class of canonical systems with two singular endpoints

Part I of this paper deals with two-dimensional canonical systems $y'(x)=yJH(x)y(x)$, $x\in(a,b)$, whose Hamiltonian $H$ is non-negative and locally integrable, and where Weyl's limit point case takes place at both endpoints $a$ and $b$. We investigate a class of such systems defined by growth restrictions on H towards a. For example, Hamiltonians on $(0,\infty)$ of the form $H(x):=\begin{pmatrix}x^{-\alpha}&0\\ 0&1\end{pmatrix}$ where $\alpha<2$ are included in this class. We develop a direct and inverse spectral theory parallel to the theory of Weyl and de Branges for systems in the limit circle case at $a$. Our approach proceeds via - and is bound to - Pontryagin space theory. It relies on spectral theory and operator models in such spaces, and on the theory of de Branges Pontryagin spaces. The main results concerning the direct problem are: (1) showing existence of regularized boundary values at $a$; (2) construction of a singular Weyl coefficient and a scalar spectral measure; (3) construction of a Fourier transform and computation of its action and the action of its inverse as integral transforms. The main results for the inverse problem are: (4) characterization of the class of measures occurring above (positive Borel measures with power growth at $\pm\infty$); (5) a global uniqueness theorem (if Weyl functions or spectral measures coincide, Hamiltonians essentially coincide); (6) a local uniqueness theorem. In Part II of the paper the results of Part I are applied to Sturm--Liouville equations with singular coefficients. We investigate classes of equations without potential (in particular, equations in impedance form) and Schr\"odinger equations, where coefficients are assumed to be singular but subject to growth restrictions. We obtain corresponding direct and inverse spectral theorems

Heat Kernel Asymptotics, Path Integrals and Infinite-Dimensional Determinants

We investigate the short-time expansion of the heat kernel of a Laplace type operator on a compact Riemannian manifold and show that the lowest order term of this expansion is given by the Fredholm determinant of the Hessian of the energy functional on a space of finite energy paths. This is the asymptotic behavior to be expected from formally expressing the heat kernel as a path integral and then (again formally) using Laplace's method on the integral. We also relate this to the zeta determinant of the Jacobi operator, which is another way to assign a determinant to the Hessian of the energy functional. We consider both the near-diagonal asymptotics as well as the behavior at the cut locus.Comment: 37 pages, restructured introductio

Direct sums of trace maps and self-adjoint extensions

We give a simple criterion so that a countable infinite direct sum of trace (evaluation) maps is a trace map. An application to the theory of self-adjoint extensions of direct sums of symmetric operators is provided; this gives an alternative approach to results recently obtained by Malamud-Neidhardt and Kostenko-Malamud using regularized direct sums of boundary triplets.Comment: Final version. To appear in: S. Albeverio (ed.), Singular Perturbation Theory, Analysis, Geometry, and Stochastic, special issue of Arab. J. Math. (Springer

Adiabatic limits of eta and zeta functions of elliptic operators

We extend the calculus of adiabatic pseudo-differential operators to study the adiabatic limit behavior of the eta and zeta functions of a differential operator $\delta$, constructed from an elliptic family of operators indexed by $S^1$. We show that the regularized values ${\eta}(\delta_t,0)$ and $t{\zeta}(\delta_t,0)$ are smooth functions of $t$ at $t=0$, and we identify their values at $t=0$ with the holonomy of the determinant bundle, respectively with a residue trace. For invertible families of operators, the functions ${\eta}(\delta_t,s)$ and $t{\zeta}(\delta_t,s)$ are shown to extend smoothly to $t=0$ for all values of $s$. After normalizing with a Gamma factor, the zeta function satisfies in the adiabatic limit an identity reminiscent of the Riemann zeta function, while the eta function converges to the volume of the Bismut-Freed meromorphic family of connection 1-forms.Comment: 32 pages, final versio