In this paper, we introduce the notions of almost upper semi-Fredholm and strictly singular pairs of subspaces and show that the class of almost upper semi-Fredholm pairs of subspaces is stable under strictly singular pairs perturbation. We apply this perturbation result to investigate the stability of almost semi-Fredholm multi-valued linear operators in normed spaces under strictly singular perturbation as well as the behaviour of the index under perturbation.2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 47A06.
Introduction.We recall some basic definitions and properties of linear relations in normed spaces following the notation and terminology of the book [7]. Let X, Y and Z denote infinite dimensional normed spaces over ދ = ޒ or .ރ A linear relation or multi-valued linear operator T from X to Y is a mapping from a subspace D(T) = {x ∈ X : Tx = ∅}, called the domain of T, into the collection of non-empty subsets of Y such that T(αx 1 + βx 2 ) = αTx 1 + βTx 2 for all non-zero α, β scalars and x 1 , x 2 ∈ D(T). The class of such linear relations is denoted by LR(X, Y ). If T maps the points of its domain to singletons, then T is said to be a single valued or simply an operator. A linear relation T is uniquely determined by its graph, G(T), which is defined byY ). The inverse of T is the linear relation T −1 given by G(T −1 ) := {(y, x) : (x, y) ∈ G(T)}. The subspaces T −1 (0) := N(T) and R(T) := T(D(T)) are called the null space and the range of T, respectively. We say that T is injective if N(T) = {0}. We note that D(T −1 ) = R(T), D(T) = R(T −1 ), T is single valued if and only if the subspace T(0) coincides with {0} and y ∈ Tx if and only if Tx = y + T(0). We write α(T) := dimN(T), β(T) := dimY/R(T), β(T) := dimY/R(T), k(T) := α(T) − β(T), provided α(T) and β(T) are not both infinite, and the topological index of T is the quantity α(T) − β(T), provided both α(T) and β(T) are not infinite. For S, T ∈ LR(X, Y ) and R ∈ LR(Y, Z) the sum S + T and the product or composition RS are defined by G(S + T) := {(x, y 1 + y 2 ) : (x, y 1 ) ∈ G(S), (x, y 2 ) ∈ G(T)} and G(RS) := {(x, z) : (x, y) ∈ G(S), (y, z) ∈ G(R) for some y ∈ Y }. Let M and N be subspaces of X and the dual space X respectively. Then J M denotes the natural injection map of M into X, M ⊥ = {x ∈ X : x (M) = 0}, and if M ∩ D(T) = ∅, then T | M is given by G(T | M ) := {(x, y) ∈ G(T) : x ∈ M} and N := {x ∈ X : N(x) = 0}. We observe that T | M = TJ M but T | M = TJ M if T is single valued.