We consider a continuous path of bounded symmetric Fredholm bilinear forms with arbitrary endpoints on a real Hilbert space, and we prove a formula that gives the spectral flow of the path in terms of the spectral flow of the restriction to a finite codimensional closed subspace. We also discuss the case of restrictions to a continuous path of finite codimensional closed subspaces. As an application of the formula, we introduce the notion of spectral flow for a periodic semi-Riemannian geodesic, and we compute its value in terms of the Maslov index.
We give a functional analytical proof of the equality between the Maslov index of a semi-Riemannian geodesic and the spectral flow of the path of self-adjoint Fredholm operators obtained from the index form. This fact, together with recent results on the bifurcation for critical points of strongly indefinite functionals (see P. M. Fitzpatrick, J. Pejsachowicz, L. Recht, Spectral Flow and Bifurcation of Strongly Indefinite Functionals Part I. General Theory, J. Funct. Anal. 162 (1) (1999), 52-95.) imply that each non degenerate and non null conjugate (or $P$-focal) point along a semi-Riemannian…
We consider a continuous curve of linear elliptic formally self-adjoint differential operators of first order with smooth coefficients over a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary together with a continuous curve of global elliptic boundary value problems. We express the spectral flow of the resulting continuous family of (unbounded) self-adjoint Fredholm operators in terms of the Maslov index of two related curves of Lagrangian spaces. One curve is given by the varying domains, the other by the Cauchy data spaces. We provide rigorous definitions of the underlying concepts of spectral theo…
A notion of equivariant spectral flows for families of self-dual elliptic operators on Riemannian manifolds is purposed. As a consequence, a local version of a Lefschetz fix point theorem is proved for Toeplitz operators on odd-dimensional spin manifolds.
This paper extends Krein's spectral shift function theory to the setting of semifinite spectral triples. We define the spectral shift function under these hypotheses via Birman-Solomyak spectral averaging formula and show that it computes spectral flow.
Let $A(t)$ be a continuous path of Fredhom operators, we first prove that the spectral flow $sf(A(t))$ is cogredient invariant. Based on this property, we give a decomposition formula of spectral flow if the path is invariant under a matrix-like cogredient. As applications, we give the generalized Bott-type iteration formula for linear Hamiltonian systems.
We discuss the well known ``Fredholm index=spectral flow'' theorem and show that it can be interpreted as a limit case of an identity involving two spectral shift functions.
A general integral formula for the spectral flow of a path of unbounded selfadjoint Fredholm operators subject to certain summability conditions is derived from the interpretation of the spectral flow as a winding number.
We give a definition of the spectral flow for continuous paths in the space of bounded and essentially hyperbolic operators. We provide a homotopical characterization of the spectral flow in terms of a group homomorphism of the fundamental group of the projectors of the Calkin algebra with the infinite cyclic group Z. This characterization helps us to exhibit examples of infinite-dimensional Banach spaces where the spectral flow is not injective nor surjective. We prove that a path with spectral flow equal to an integer m exists if and only if there exists a projector P connected by an arc to …
We prove a spectral flow formula for one-parameter families of Hamiltonian systems under homoclinic boundary conditions, which relates the spectral flow to the relative Maslov index of a pair of curves of Lagrangians induced by the stable and unstable subspaces, respectively. Finally, we deduce sufficient conditions for bifurcation of homoclinic trajectories of one-parameter families of nonautonomous Hamiltonian vector fields.
We define a spectral flow for paths of selfadjoint Fredholm operators that are equivariant under the orthogonal action of a compact Lie group as an element of the representation ring of the latter. This $G$-equivariant spectral flow shares all common properties of the integer valued classical spectral flow, and it can be non-trivial even if the classical spectral flow vanishes. Our main theorem uses the $G$-equivariant spectral flow to study bifurcation of periodic solutions for autonomous Hamiltonian systems with symmetries.
We prove two results about nonunital index theory left open by [CGRS2]. The first is that the spectral triple arising from an action of the reals on a C*-algebra with invariant trace satisfies the hypotheses of the nonunital local index formula. The second result concerns the meaning of spectral flow in the nonunital case. For the special case of paths arising from the odd index pairing for smooth spectral triples in the nonunital setting we are able to connect with earlier approaches to the analytic definition of spectral flow.
We present a fairly general construction of unbounded representatives for the interior Kasparov product. As a main tool we develop a theory of C^1-connections on operator * modules; we do not require any smoothness assumptions; our sigma-unitality assumptions are minimal. Furthermore, we use work of Kucerovsky and our recent Local Global Principle for regular operators in Hilbert C*-modules. As an application we show that the Spectral Flow Theorem and more generally the index theory of Dirac-Schrödinger operators can be nicely explained in terms of the interior Kasparov product.
We present a new and simple approach to the theory of multiple operator integrals that applies to unbounded operators affiliated with general von Neumann algebras. For semifinite von Neumann algebras we give applications to the Fréchet differentiation of operator functions that sharpen existing results, and establish the Birman-Solomyak representation of the spectral shift function of M.G. Krein in terms of an average of spectral measures in the type II setting. We also exhibit a surprising connection between the spectral shift function and spectral flow.
The spectral flow is a well-known quantity in spectral theory that measures the variation of spectra about $0$ along paths of selfadjoint Fredholm operators. The aim of this work is twofold. Firstly, we consider homotopy invariance properties of the spectral flow and establish a simple formula which comprises its classical homotopy invariance and yields a comparison theorem for the spectral flow under compact perturbations. We apply our result to the existence of non-trivial solutions of boundary value problems of Hamiltonian systems. Secondly, the spectral flow was axiomatically characterised…
We consider bifurcation of solutions from a given trivial branch for a class of strongly indefinite elliptic systems via the spectral flow. Our main results establish bifurcation invariants that can be obtained from the coefficients of the systems without using explicit solutions of their linearisations at the given branch. Our constructions are based on a comparison principle for the spectral flow and a generalisation of a bifurcation theorem due to Szulkin.
We define and study the noncommutative spectral flow for paths of regular selfadjoint Fredholm operators on a countably generated Hilbert C*-module. We give an axiomatic description and discuss some applications. One of them is the definition of a noncommutative Maslov index for paths of Lagrangians which appears in a splitting formula for the spectral flow. Analogously we study the spectral flow for odd operators on a graded module.
It is a well-known result of T.\,Kato that given a continuous path of square matrices of a fixed dimension, the eigenvalues of the path can be chosen continuously. In this paper, we give an infinite-dimensional analogue of this result, which naturally arises in the context of the so-called unitary spectral flow. This provides a new approach to spectral flow, which seems to be missing from the literature. It is the purpose of the present paper to fill in this gap.
We explain an array of basic functional analysis puzzles on the way to general spectral flow formulae and indicate a direction of future topological research for dealing with these puzzles.
We give a definition of the spectral flow for paths of bounded essentially hyperbolic operators on a Banach space. The spectral flow induces a group homomorphism on the fundamental group of every connected component of the space of essentially hyperbolic operators. We prove that this homomorphism completes the exact homotopy sequence of a Serre fibration. This allows us to characterise its kernel and image and to produce examples of spaces where it is not injective or not surjective, unlike what happens for Hilbert spaces. For a large class of paths, namely the essentially splitting, the spect…
Given an essentially unitary contraction and an arbitrary unitary dilation of it, there is a naturally associated spectral flow which is shown to be equal to the index of the operator. This purely operator theoretic result is interpreted in terms of the $K$-theory of an associated mapping cone. It is then extended to connect $Z_2$ indices of odd symmetric Fredholm operators to a $Z_2$-valued spectral flow.
We introduce a new topology, weaker than the gap topology, on the space of selfadjoint operators affiliated to a semifinite von Neumann algebra. We define the real-valued spectral flow for a continuous path of selfadjoint Breuer-Fredholm operators in terms of a generalization of the winding number. We compare our definition with Phillips' analytical definition and derive integral formulas for the spectral flow for certain paths of unbounded operators with common domain, generalizing those of Carey--Phillips. Furthermore we prove the homotopy invariance of the real-valued index. As an example w…
In this article we give a comprehensive treatment of a `Clifford module flow' along paths in the skew-adjoint Fredholm operators on a real Hilbert space that takes values in KO${}_{*}(\mathbb{R})$ via the Clifford index of Atiyah-Bott-Shapiro. We develop its properties for both bounded and unbounded skew-adjoint operators including an axiomatic characterization. Our constructions and approach are motivated by the principle that \[ \text{spectral flow} = \text{Fredholm index}. \] That is, we show how the KO--valued spectral flow relates to a KO-valued index by proving a Robbin-Salamon type resu…
An analytic definition of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-valued spectral flow for paths of real skew-adjoint Fredholm operators is given. It counts the parity of the number of changes in the orientation of the eigenfunctions at eigenvalue crossings through $0$ along the path. The $\mathbb{Z}_2$-valued spectral flow is shown to satisfy a concatenation property and homotopy invariance, and it provides an isomorphism on the fundamental group of the real skew-adjoint Fredholm operators. Moreover, it is connected to a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-index pairing for suitable paths. Applications concern the zero energy bound sta…
We give an elementary proof of a celebrated theorem of Cappell, Lee and Miller which relates the Maslov index of a pair of paths of Lagrangian subspaces to the spectral flow of an associated path of selfadjoint first-order operators. We particularly pay attention to the continuity of the latter path of operators, where we consider the gap-metric on the set of all closed operators on a Hilbert space. Finally, we obtain from Cappell, Lee and Miller's theorem a spectral flow formula for linear Hamiltonian systems which generalises a recent result of Hu and Portaluri.
We define a new topology, weaker than the gap topology, on the space of selfadjoint unbounded operators on a separable Hilbert space. We show that the subspace of selfadjoint Fredholm operators represents the functor $K^1$ from the category of compact spaces to the category of abelian groups and prove a similar result for $K^0$. We define the spectral flow of a continuous path of selfadjoint Fredholm operators generalizing the approach of Booss-Bavnek--Lesch--Phillips.
An odd Fredholm module for a given invertible operator on a Hilbert space is specified by an unbounded so-called Dirac operator with compact resolvent and bounded commutator with the given invertible. Associated to this is an index pairing in terms of a Fredholm operator with Noether index. Here it is shown by a spectral flow argument how this index can be calculated as the signature of a finite dimensional matrix called the spectral localizer.
In 2005 a new topological invariant defined in terms of the Brouwer degree of a determinant map, was introduced by Musso, Pejsachowicz and the first name author for counting the conjugate points along a semi-Riemannian geodesic. This invariant was defined in terms of a suspension of a complexified family of linear second order Dirichlet boundary value problems. In this paper, starting from this result, we generalize this invariant to a general self-adjoint Morse-Sturm system and we prove a new spectral flow formula. Finally we discuss the relation between this spectral flow formula and the Hil…
This note is about the topology of the path space of linear Fredholm operators on a real Hilbert space. Fitzpatrick and Pejsachowicz introduced the parity of such a path, based on the Leray-Schauder degree of a path of parametrices. Here an alternative analytic approach is presented which reduces the parity to the ${\mathbb Z}_2$-valued spectral flow of an associated path of chiral skew-adjoints. Furthermore the related notion of ${\mathbb Z}_2$-index of a Fredholm pair of chiral complex structures is introduced and connected to the parity of a suitable path. Several non-trivial examples are p…
One may trace the idea that spectral flow should be given as the integral of a one form back to the 1974 Vancouver ICM address of I.M. Singer. Our main theorem gives analytic formulae for the spectral flow along a norm differentiable path of self-adjoint bounded Breuer-Fredholm operators in a semi-finite von Neumann algebra. These formulae have a geometric interpretation which derives from the proof. Namely we define a family of Banach submanifolds of all bounded self-adjoint Breuer-Fredholm operators and on each submanifold define global one forms whose integral on a norm differentiable path …
