On Distributions of Self-Adjoint Extensions of Symmetric Operators
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Journal of Stochastic Analysis Volume 2 Number 2 Article 6 June 2021 On Distributions of Self-Adjoint Extensions of Symmetric Operators Franco Fagnola Politecnico di Milano, Milan, 20133, Italy, [email protected] Zheng Li Politecnico di Milano, Milan, 20133, Italy, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/josa Part of the Analysis Commons, and the Other Mathematics Commons Recommended Citation Fagnola, Franco and Li, Zheng (2021) "On Distributions of Self-Adjoint Extensions of Symmetric Operators," Journal of Stochastic Analysis: Vol. 2 : No. 2 , Article 6. DOI: 10.31390/josa.2.2.06 Available at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/josa/vol2/iss2/6 Journal of Stochastic Analysis Vol. 2, No. 2 (2021) Article 6 (14 pages) digitalcommons.lsu.edu/josa DOI: 10.31390/josa.2.2.06 ON DISTRIBUTIONS OF SELF-ADJOINT EXTENSIONS OF SYMMETRIC OPERATORS FRANCO FAGNOLA AND ZHENG LI* Abstract. In quantum probability a self-adjoint operator on a Hilbert space determines a real random variable and one can define a probability distribu- tion with respect to a given state. In this paper we consider self-adjoint extensions of certain symmetric operators, such as momentum and Hamil- tonian operators, with various boundary conditions, explicitly compute their probability distributions in some state and study dependence of these prob- ability distributions on boundary conditions. 1. Introduction In Quantum Probability a self-adjoint operator defines a real random variable. Precisely, any self-adjoint⟨ operator⟩ A on Hilbert space H determines a probabil- ity measure by B 7! u; P A(B)u , where u 2 H is a unit vector and P A is the projection-valued measure associated with A. The problem of studying the prob- ability distribution of A with respect to some state u 2 H naturally arises. In particular, the problem of finding the vacuum state distribution of field operators in interacting Fock spaces has recently attracted a lot of interest (see [2, 3, 5] and the references therein). When the self-adjoint operator is an extension of a symmetric operator, it is interesting to understand the dependence of the distribution on the special self- adjoint extension chosen. This problem is highly non-trivial because different self- adjoint extensions define non-commuting random variables and, moreover, they do not have a common essential domain. In addition, it may not be possible to determine the distribution computing moments, as usually done for field operators in interacting Fock spaces (see [1, 5]), because either moments do not exist or the distribution is not determined by moments. In this paper, we consider momentum (imaginary unit i times the first deriva- tive) and Hamiltonian (minus second derivative) operators defined on compactly supported smooth functions on (0; 1) or (0; +1), and self-adjoint extensions of their closures in L2(0; 1) or L2(0; +1). The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we compute explicitly the distributions of self-adjoint extensions of momentum on L2(0; 1) finding a family of discrete distributions (Theorem 2.1) without moments, except in the special Received 2021-3-7; Accepted 2021-5-25; Communicated by the editors. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 81P16; Secondary 81Q80. Key words and phrases. Quantum probability, distribution, self-adjoint extension. * Corresponding author. 1 2 FRANCO FAGNOLA AND ZHENG LI case where one gets the delta δ0 at 0 with respect to the pure state determined by the constant function 1 equal to 1. This result can be achieved either by a spectral theoretic or a probabilistic method. In Section 3 we consider self-adjoint extensions of minus second derivative on smooth compactly supported functions on (0; +1). These are determined by boundary conditions u0(0) + ru(0) = 0 (r 2 R) or u(0) = 0. In this case the spec- trum is the half-line [0; +1) for r ≤ 0 and {−r2g [ [0; +1) for r > 0 (Proposition 3.1). We can compute explicitly the distribution of self-adjoint extensions with respect to some reference states related with Hermite polynomials in the special cases where the boundary condition is u0(0) = 0 or u(0) = 0. Indeed, we find the explicit formula for the Laplace transform of the distribution and, after in- version, we get a family of Gamma distributions (Theorem 3.2). Apparently, this computation does not give an explicit (invertible) Laplace transform for r =6 0. Finally, in Section 4 we consider self-adjoint extensions of minus second deriv- ative on smooth compactly supported functions on (0; 1). In this case boundary conditions become more complicated therefore we consider only some special cases. We compute the Laplace transform of the distribution, which can be easily tackled by separation of variables, and find a collection of discrete distributions (Theorem 4.1) with respect to the reference state 1 after the inversion. Throughout the paper we write L2(I) for some interval I ⊂ R to denote L2(I; C), i.e. we consider the complex-valued functions. 2. The Momentum Operator on L2(0; 1) The momentum operator on L2(0; 1) can be defined as a self-adjoint extension of the first-order differential operator A on L2(0; 1), i.e. { } Au = iu0; D(A) = u 2 H1(0; 1) j u(0) = u(1) = 0 (2.1) Obviously, A is densely-defined, closed and symmetric. As shown in Reed and Simon ([8] Ch.X, Ex.1, p.141), the self-adjoint extensions of A, denoted by Aθ (0 ≤ θ < 2π), have domain { } 1 −iθ D(Aθ) = u 2 H (0; 1) j u(1) = e u(0) : Thus, if we consider as reference state 1 2 L2(0; 1), where 1 represents the constant function equal to 1, the distribution of Aθ is given by the following 2 Theorem 2.1. The self-adjoint extension Aθ of the operator A on L (0; 1) defined by (2.1), with respect to the state 1, has the distribution δ0 when θ = 0 and X 2(1 − cos θ) · δ (2.2) (θ + 2kπ)2 θ+2kπ k2Z when 0 < θ < 2π. Proof. We first study the point spectrum of the self-adjoint operator Aθ. To this end we solve the eigenvalue problem 0 Aθu = iu = λu, u 2 D(Aθ); λ 2 C; SELF-ADJOINT EXTENSIONS OF SYMMETRIC OPERATORS 3 finding solutions −iλx uλ(x) = e ; λ = θ + 2kπ; k 2 Z: Then, we can calculate the probability mass of Aθ at points λ = θ + 2kπ, in the state 1. For θ =6 0 we find − 2 − 2 sin θ i(1 cos θ) 2(1 cos θ) h1;Aθ (fλg) 1i = jhuλ; 1ij = + = (2.3) θ + 2kπ θ + 2kπ (θ + 2kπ)2 Noting that, for all θ the sequence of functions (uθ+2kπ)k2Z forms a complete 2 orthogonal system in L (0; 1), and so we found the spectral resolution of Aθ, this proves (2.2). As a byproduct we find the summation formula X 2(1 − cos θ) = 1 (θ + 2kπ)2 k2Z for all θ =6 0. When θ = 0, we have ( 1; k = 0 h1;A0 (f2kπg) 1i = (2.4) 0; k 2 Z n f0g namely, A0 has the distribution δ0. One may also notice that, if we let θ ! 0 in (2.3), it gives ( 2(1 − cos θ) 1; k = 0 lim = θ!0 (θ + 2kπ)2 0; k 2 Z n f0g in other words, as a random variable, Aθ converges in distribution to A0 as θ ! 0. Remark 2.2. One can get the same conclusion by a probabilistic method first com- puting explicitly the characteristic function( ) and then the density by L´evyinversion itAθ formula. Indeed the unitary group e t2R solves the transport equation @u(t; x) @u(t; x) = iA u(t; x) = − ; 8t 2 R; 8x 2 (0; 1) @t θ @x with initial value u(0; x) = u(x) and boundary condition u(t; 1) = e−iθu(t; 0). If we assume limt!0+ u(t; 1) = u(1), then the solution will be determined by ( u(t; x) = u(x − t) (2.5) u(t; 1) = e−iθu(t; 0) Solving the differential equation we find itAθ ([t]+1)iθ [t]iθ e 1(x) = e 1[0;t−[t]](x) + e 1]t−[t];1](x) where [t] denotes the integer part of the real number t and 1A the indicator function of a Borel set A. Similarly, for t < 0, itAθ [t]iθ ([t]−1)iθ e 1(x) = e 1[0;t+1−[t]](x) + e 1]t+1−[t];1](x) 4 FRANCO FAGNOLA AND ZHENG LI itA Then, the Fourier transform ϕ(t) = h1; e θ 1i of the distribution of Aθ with respect to the state 1 becomes ( e([t]+1)iθ(t − [t]) + e[t]iθ(1 − (t − [t])); t > 0 ϕ(t) = (2.6) e([t]−1)iθ(−(t − [t])) + e[t]iθ(1 + (t − [t])); t < 0 In order to find the discrete part of the distribution we apply the L´evyinversion formula computing Z Z n nX−1 k+1 [ ] e−ityϕ(t)dt = e−ity ek+1θ(t − k) + eikθ(1 − t + k) dt − n k=−n k − [ ] nX1 1 + iy − eiy 1 − iy − e−iy = ei(k+1)(θ−y) + eik(θ−y) y2 y2 k=−n for n ≥ 1. Recalling the summation formulae ( nX−1 ik(θ−y) 2n if y = θ + 2hπ e = ein(θ−y)−e−in(θ−y) − if y =6 θ + 2hπ k=−n ei(θ y)−1 for y = θ we find Z [ ] 1 n 1 1 + iy − eiy 1 − iy − e−iy lim e−ityϕ(t)dt = lim · 2n · + !1 !1 2 2 n 2n −n n 2n y y 2(1 − cos y) 2(1 − cos θ) = = : y2 (θ + 2hπ)2 The above limit is 0 for y =6 θ and we recover the result of Theorem 2.1.