English

Hermitian indices and factorization of selfadjoint operators on a Kre\u{i}n space

Functional Analysis 2026-02-02 v1

Abstract

The hermitian indices of a selfadjoint operator CC on a Kre\u{i}n space H\mathcal H are defined as geometric measures of positivity and negativity of the operator. A different pair of indices arises in the Bogn\'ar-Kr\'amli factorization of CC, which writes CC as a product AAAA^* where AA acts on a Kre\u{i}n space A\mathcal A into H\mathcal H and has zero kernel; the new indices are the positive and negative indices of A\mathcal A. Such factorizations are far from unique. When H\mathcal H is separable, it is known that the two notions of indices always coincide, and this has applications to index formulas in the theory of Julia operators and completion problems for operator matrices. A new proof of the equality of indices that does not require separability is given in this work.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.22366,
  title  = {Hermitian indices and factorization of selfadjoint operators on a Kre\u{i}n space},
  author = {Michael A. Dritschel and Alejandra Maestripieri and James Rovnyak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.22366},
  year   = {2026}
}