Cone Minimax Principles for Non-Selfadjoint Operator Pencils
We propose a variational approach to principal spectral values of non-selfadjoint operator pencils $\mathcal L u=\lambda\mathcal G u$, where the weight operator $\mathcal G$ may be singular. The aim is to obtain Rayleigh-type minimax formulas for selected real spectral levels in settings where the standard selfadjoint variational theory is unavailable and positivity-based methods may not apply directly. The construction is based on the extended two-variable Rayleigh quotient \[ \mathcal R(u,v) = \frac{\langle \mathcal L u,v\rangle} {(\mathcal G u,v)_H},\] defined on admissible cone pairs. It leads to dual sup-inf and inf-sup principal levels, cone quasi-eigenvalues, and corresponding trapping and saddle-point principles. The resulting minimax formulas characterize selected real cone levels of non-selfadjoint operator pencils and identify them with principal spectral values whenever positive right-left eigenpairs exist, including cases with non-invertible operators and singular weights. We prove that these formulas are stable under finite-dimensional approximation. Thus the classical idea of approximating spectral data by finite-dimensional variational problems acquires an analogue for non-selfadjoint operator pencils in an ordered cone setting. The method also yields a posteriori spectral certificates, one-sided perturbation bounds, and approximation estimates. Elliptic examples illustrate both the scope of the method and the sharpness of the estimates.