Initial Value Problems and Weyl--Titchmarsh Theory for Schr\"odinger Operators with Operator-Valued Potentials

TL;DR

This paper develops Weyl-Titchmarsh theory for operator-valued Schrödinger operators, establishing existence, properties of solutions, and spectral analysis under very general conditions on the operator potentials.

Contribution

It introduces the most general conditions to date for the existence and analysis of solutions and spectral functions of operator-valued Schrödinger operators with boundary conditions.

Findings

Existence of Weyl-Titchmarsh solutions and m-functions.

Characterization of the Green's function structure.

Generalized conditions for operator-valued potential regularity.

Abstract

We develop Weyl-Titchmarsh theory for self-adjoint Schr\"odinger operators $H_{\alpha}$ in $L^2((a,b);dx;\cH)$ associated with the operator-valued differential expression $\tau =-(d^2/dx^2)+V(\cdot)$, with $V:(a,b)\to\cB(\cH)$, and $\cH$ a complex, separable Hilbert space. We assume regularity of the left endpoint $a$ and the limit point case at the right endpoint $b$. In addition, the bounded self-adjoint operator $\alpha= \alpha^* \in \cB(\cH)$ is used to parametrize the self-adjoint boundary condition at the left endpoint $a$ of the type $$ \sin(\alpha)u'(a)+\cos(\alpha)u(a)=0, $$ with $u$ lying in the domain of the underlying maximal operator $H_{\max}$ in $L^2((a,b);dx;\cH)$ associated with $\tau$. More precisely, we establish the existence of the Weyl-Titchmarsh solution of $H_{\alpha}$, the corresponding Weyl-Titchmarsh $m$-function $m_{\alpha}$ and its Herglotz property, and determine the structure of the Green's function of $H_{\alpha}$. Developing Weyl-Titchmarsh theory requires control over certain (operator-valued) solutions of appropriate initial value problems. Thus, we consider existence and uniqueness of solutions of 2nd-order differential equations with the operator coefficient $V$, -y" + (V - z) y = f \, \text{on} \, (a,b), y(x_0) = h_0, \; y'(x_0) = h_1, under the following general assumptions: $(a,b)\subseteq\bbR$ is a finite or infinite interval, $x_0\in(a,b)$, $z\in\bbC$, $V:(a,b)\to\cB(\cH)$ is a weakly measurable operator-valued function with $\|V(\cdot)\|_{\cB(\cH)}\in L^1_\loc((a,b);dx)$, and $f\in L^1_{\loc}((a,b);dx;\cH)$, with $\cH$ a complex, separable Hilbert space. We also study the analog of this initial value problem with $y$ and $f$ replaced by operator-valued functions $Y, F \in \cB(\cH)$. Our hypotheses on the local behavior of $V$ appear to be the most general ones to date.