Spectral theory of elliptic differential operators with indefinite weights

Abstract

The spectral properties of a class of non-self-adjoint second-order elliptic operators with indefinite weight functions on unbounded domains Ω are investigated. It is shown, under an abstract regularity assumption, that the non-real spectrum of the associated elliptic operators in L2(Ω) is bounded. In the special case where Ω = ℝn decomposes into subdomains Ω+ and Ω− with smooth compact boundaries and the weight function is positive on Ω+ and negative on Ω−, it turns out that the non-real spectrum consists only of normal eigenvalues that can be characterized with a Dirichlet-to-Neumann map.