Spectral theory of discontinuous functions of self-adjoint operators and scattering theory

In the smooth scattering theory framework, we consider a pair of self-adjoint operators H-0, H and discuss the spectral projections of these operators corresponding to the interval (-infinity, lambda). The purpose of the paper is to study the spectral properties of the difference D(lambda) of these spectral projections. We completely describe the absolutely continuous spectrum of the operator D(lambda) in terms of the eigenvalues of the scattering matrix S(lambda) for the operators H-0 and H. We also prove that the singular continuous spectrum of the operator D(lambda) is empty and that its eigenvalues may accumulate only at "thresholds" in the absolutely continuous spectrum. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.