Global solvability on the torus for certain classes of formally self-adjoint operators

In this paper we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for global solvability on the torus for two classes of formally self-adjoint operators. For the first class of operators we prove that global solvability is equivalent to an algebraic condition involving Liouville vectors and simultaneous approximability. For the second class of operators, when the coefficients are not identically zero, an independence condition on the coefficients is shown to be necessary and sufficient for global solvability. Received: 21 June 1999 / Revised version: 8 May 2000