We present a method to place the eigenvalues of an electrical network towards a prescribed set of complex numbers by inserting an additional capacitance into the network. We use recent results on rank one perturbations of regular matrix pencils and provide an upper bound on the approximation error of the eigenvalues in the chordal distance.

We prove new enclosures for the spectrum of non-selfadjoint operator matrices associated with second order linear differential equations z'' (t) + D z' (t) + A_0 z(t) = 0 in a Hilbert space. Our main tool is the quadratic numerical range for which we establish the spectral inclusion property under weak assumptions on the operators involved; in particular, the damping operator only needs to be accretive and may have the same strength as A_0. By means of the quadratic numerical range, we establish tight spectral estimates in terms of the unbounded operator coefficients A_0 and D which improve earlier results for sectorial and selfadjoint D; in contrast to numerical range bounds, our enclosures may even provide bounded imaginary part of the spectrum or a spectral free vertical strip. An application to small transverse oscillations of a horizontal pipe carrying a steady-state flow of an ideal incompressible fluid illustrates that our new bounds are explicit.

Indefinite Sturm-Liouville operators defined on the real line are often considered as a coupling of two semibounded symmetric operators defined on the positive and the negative half axis. In many situations, those two semibounded symmetric operators have in a special sense good properties like a Hilbert space self-adjoint extension. In this paper we present an abstract approach to the coupling of two (definitizable) self-adjoint operators. We obtain a characterization for the definitizability and the regularity of the critical points. Finally we study a typical class of indefinite Sturm-Liouville problems on the real line.