Efficient Computation of Analytic Bases in Evans Function Analysis of Large Systems

In Evans function computations of the spectra of asymptotically constant-coefficient linearized operators of large systems, a problem that becomes important is the efficient computation of global analytically varying bases for invariant subspaces of the limiting coefficient matrices. In the case that the invariant subspace is spectrally separated from its complementary invariant subspace, we propose an efficient numerical implementation of a standard projection-based algorithm of Kato, for which the key step is the solution of an associated Sylvester problem. This may be recognized as the analytic cousin of a C ^k algorithm developed by Dieci and collaborators based on orthogonal projection rather than eigenprojection as in our case. For a one-dimensional subspace, it reduces essentially to an algorithm of Bridges, Derks and Gottwald based on path-finding and continuation methods.