Spectral aspects of regularization of the Cauchy problem for a degenerate equation

We study the Cauchy problem for an equation whose generating operator is degenerate on some subset of the coordinate space. To approximate a solution of the degenerate problem by solutions of well-posed problems, we define a class of regularizations of the degenerate operator in terms of conditions on the spectral properties of approximating operators. We show that the behavior (convergence, compactness, and the set of partial limits in some topology) of the sequence of solutions of regularized problems is determined by the deficiency indices of the degenerate operator. We define an approximative solution of the degenerate problem as the limit of the sequence of solutions of regularized problems and analyze the dependence of the approximative solution on the choice of an admissible regularization.