Variational principle for Hamiltonians with degenerate bottom

Abstract

We consider perturbations of Hamiltonians whose Fourier symbol attains its minimum along a hypersurface. Such operators arise in several domains, like spintronics, theory of supercondictivity, or theory of superfluidity. Variational estimates for the number of eigenvalues below the essential spectrum in terms of the perturbation potential are provided. In particular, we provide an elementary proof that negative potentials lead to an infinite discrete spectrum.