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On a formula for the spectral flow and its applications
Author(s) -
Benevieri Pierluigi,
Piccione Paolo
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
mathematische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1522-2616
pISSN - 0025-584X
DOI - 10.1002/mana.200710232
Subject(s) - mathematics , linear subspace , hilbert space , flow (mathematics) , pure mathematics , geodesic , path (computing) , subspace topology , mathematical analysis , geometry , computer science , programming language
We consider a continuous path of bounded symmetric Fredholm bilinear forms with arbitrary endpoints on a real Hilbert space, and we prove a formula that gives the spectral flow of the path in terms of the spectral flow of the restriction to a finite codimensional closed subspace. We also discuss the case of restrictions to a continuous path of finite codimensional closed subspaces. As an application of the formula, we introduce the notion of spectral flow for a periodic semi‐Riemannian geodesic, and we compute its value in terms of the Maslov index (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)