On finite rank perturbations of definitizable operators

It was shown by P. Jonas and H. Langer that a selfadjoint definitizable operator A in a Krein space remains definitizable after a finite rank perturbation in resolvent sense if the perturbed operator B is selfadjoint and the resolvent set ρ(B) is nonempty. It is the aim of this note to prove a more general variant of this perturbation result where the assumption on ρ(B) is dropped. As an application a class of singular ordinary differential operators with indefinite weight functions is studied. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved