Degenerate elliptic operators in one dimension

Let $H$ be the symmetric second-order differential operator on $L_2(\Ri)$ with domain $C_c^\infty(\Ri)$ and action $Hφ=-(c φ')'$ where $ c\in W^{1,2}_{\rm loc}(\Ri)$ is a real function which is strictly positive on $\Ri\backslash\{0\}$ but with $c(0)=0$. We give a complete characterization of the self-adjoint extensions and the submarkovian extensions of $H$. In particular if $ν=ν_+\veeν_-$ where $ν_\pm(x)=\pm\int^{\pm 1}_{\pm x} c^{-1}$ then $H$ has a unique self-adjoint extension if and only if $ν\not\in L_2(0,1)$ and a unique submarkovian extension if and only if $ν\not\in L_\infty(0,1)$. In both cases the corresponding semigroup leaves $L_2(0,\infty)$ and $L_2(-\infty,0)$ invariant. In addition we prove that for a general non-negative $ c\in W^{1,\infty}_{\rm loc}(\Ri)$ the corresponding operator $H$ has a unique submarkovian extension.

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