M-function behaviour for a periodic Dirac system

Abstract

For a 2 × 2 periodic system with a perturbation P whose first moment is finite, Jy′ = [λI + R(x) + P(x)]y, we study the behaviour of the Titchmarsh–Weyl m(λ)-coefficient at the spectral gap endpoints. Assuming gap nondegeneracy, our main result is that as λ → λ0, (λ − λ0)½(m(λ) → c ≠ 0 if and only if λ0 is a φ-half-bound state, which follows from an analysis of Jost-type functions.