Stability Properties of Feynman's Operational Calculus for Exponential Functions of Noncommuting Operators

Stability properties of Feynman's operational calculus are addressed in the setting of exponential functions of noncommuting operators. Applications of some of the stability results are presented. In particular, the time-dependent perturbation theory of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is presented in the setting of the operational calculus and application of the stability results of this paper to the perturbation theory are discussed.     

Spline collocation for strongly elliptic equations on the torus

Summary We prove convergence and error estimates in Sobolev spaces for the collocation method with tensor product splines for strongly elliptic pseudodifferential equations on the torus. Examples of applications include elliptic partial differential equations with periodic boundary conditions but also the classical boundary integral operators of potential theory on torus-shaped domains in three or more dimensions. For odd-degree splines, we prove convergence of nodal collocation for any strongly elliptic operator. For even-degree splines and midpoint collocation, we find an additional condition for the convergence which is satisfied for the classical boundary integral operators. Our analysis is a generalization to higher dimensions of the corresponding analysis of Arnold and Wendland [4].     

A second-order accurate numerical method for a fractional wave equation

We study a generalized Crank–Nicolson scheme for the time discretization of a fractional wave equation, in combination with a space discretization by linear finite elements. The scheme uses a non-uniform grid in time to compensate for the singular behaviour of the exact solution at t = 0. With appropriate assumptions on the data and assuming that the spatial domain is convex or smooth, we show that the error is of order k ² + h ², where k and h are the parameters for the time and space meshes, respectively.     

Controllability of linear systems,differential geometry curves in grassmannians and generalized grassmannians,and riccati equations

We study the linear system =Ax+Bu from a differential geometric point of view. It is well-known that controllability of the system is related to the one-parameter family of operators e^t B. We use this to give a proof of the classical controllability conditions in terms of the differential geometry of certain curves in ⁿ. We then view (t)=Im(e^t B) as a curve in appropriate Grassmannian and see that, in local coordinates, is an integral curve of the flow induced by a matrix Riccati equation. We obtain qualitative geometric conditions on that are equivalent to the controllability of the system. To get quantitiative results, we lift to a curve l' in a splitting space, a generalized Grassmannian, which has the advantage of being a reductive homogeneous space of the general linear group, GL(ⁿ). Explicit and simple expressions concerning the geometry of are computed in terms of the Lie algebra of GL(ⁿ), and these are related to the controllability of the system.James Wolper was a visiting professor in the Department of Mathematics at Texas Tech University while much of this research was conducted. He would like to express appreciation for the hospitality he received during his visit.