Meaning of Kato's Formulas for Upper and Lower Bounds to Eigenvalues of Hermitian Operators
Using an independent derivation by Kohn, the full meaning of Kato's formulas for upper and lower bounds to eigenvalues of a Hermitian operator is shown. These bounds are the best possible when the only information available on a particular eigenvalue problem is a suitable trial function and an estimate of the neighboring eigenvalues to the one in question. This was asserted by Kato but not proved. A comparison is made of Kato's bounds with those derived in papers by Stevenson and Crawford and by Cohen and Feldmann. Under the conditions which result in Kato's bounds it is shown that the Stevenson–Crawford and Cohen–Feldmann bounds reduce to those of Kato. When more information is available these bounds are an improvement upon Kato's. This makes more precise the recent work of Walmsley and Cohen–Feldmann, whose results appear to prove in general the greater accuracy of the Stevenson–Crawford and Cohen–Feldmann bounds over those of Kato. A general discussion of all three sets of bounds is given in terms of the parameter λ appearing in the Stevenson–Crawford formulation.