Renormalized oscillation theory for singular linear Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

Working with a general class of linear Hamiltonian systems on intervals with at least one singular endpoint which can be limit-point, limit-circle, or limit-intermediate, we show that renormalized oscillation results can be obtained in a natural way through consideration of the Maslov index associated with appropriately chosen paths of Lagrangian subspaces of C2n. In the first part of the analysis we associate our linear Hamiltonian systems with families of well-defined self-adjoint operators, and in the latter part we employ the renormalized oscillation approach to count the number of eigenvalues these operators have on fixed intervals (λ1,λ2) whose closures do not intersect the essential spectrum of the operators. We conclude the analysis with two illustrative examples, indicating how the theory can be implemented in practice. This extends previous work by the authors for regular linear Hamiltonian systems.