A note on the spectrum of Lipschitz operators and composition operators on Lipschitz spaces

Abstract

Fix a metric space $M$ and let $\mathrm{Lip}_0(M)$ be the Banach space of complex-valued Lipschitz functions defined on $M$. A weighted composition operator on $\mathrm{Lip}_0(M)$ is an operator of the kind $wC_f : g \mapsto w \cdot g \circ f$, where $w : M \to \mathbb C$ and $f: M \to M$ are any map. When such an operator is bounded, it is actually the adjoint operator of a so-called weighted Lipschitz operator $w\widehat{f}$ acting on the Lipschitz-free space $\mathcal F(M)$. In this note, we study the spectrum of such operators, with a special emphasize when they are compact. Notably, we obtain a precise description in the non-weighted $w \equiv 1$ case: the spectrum is finite and made of roots of unity.