Etudes of the resolvent

Based on the notion of the resolvent and on the Hilbert identities, this paper presents a number of classical results in the theory of differential operators and some of their applications to the theory of automorphic functions and number theory from a unified point of view. For instance, for the Sturm-Liouville operator there is a derivation of the Gelfand-Levitan trace formula, and for the one-dimensional Schrödinger operator a derivation of Faddeev's formula for the characteristic determinant and the Zakharov- Faddeev trace identities. Recent results on the spectral theory of a certain functional-difference operator arising in conformal field theory are then presented. The last section of the survey is devoted to the Laplace operator on a fundamental domain of a Fuchsian group of the first kind on the Lobachevsky plane. An algebraic scheme is given for proving analytic continuation of the integral kernel of the resolvent of the Laplace operator and the Eisenstein-Maass series. In conclusion there is a discussion of the relationship between the values of the Eisenstein-Maass series at Heegner points and the Dedekind zeta-functions of imaginary quadratic fields, and it is explained why pseudo-cusp forms for the case of the modular group do not provide any information about the zeros of the Riemann zeta-function. Bibliography: 50 titles.