Remarks on criticality theory for Schrödinger operators and its application to wave equations with potentials

Abstract In this paper, we give an alternative perspective of the criticality theory for (nonnegative) Schrödinger operators. Schrödinger operator S is classified as subcritical/critical in terms of the existence/nonexistence of a positive Green function for the associated elliptic equation $$Su=f$$ S u = f . Such a property strongly affects to the large-time behavior of solutions to the parabolic equation $$\partial _tv+Sv=0$$ ∂ t v + S v = 0 . In this paper, we propose a remarkable quantity in terms of the structure of Hilbert lattices, which keeps some important properties including the notion of criticality theory. As an application, we study the large-time behavior of solutions to the hyperbolic equation $$\partial _t^2w+Sw=0$$ ∂ t 2 w + S w = 0 .