The Krein spectral shift and rank one perturbations of spectra

Abstract

We use recent results on the boundary behavior of Cauchy integrals to study the Krein spectral shift of a rank one perturbation problem for self-adjoint operators. As an application, we prove that all self-adjoint rank one perturbations of a self-adjoint operator are pure point if and only if the spectrum of the operator is countable. We also study pairs of pure point operators unitarily equivalent up to a rank one perturbation and give various examples of rank one perturbations of singular spectra.