Lyapunov and Sacker–Sell Spectral Intervals

In this work, we show that for linear upper triangular systems of differential equations, we can use the diagonal entries to obtain the Sacker and Sell, or Exponential Dichotomy, and also –under some restrictions– the Lyapunov spectral intervals. Since any bounded and continuous coefficient matrix function can be smoothly transformed to an upper triangular matrix function, our results imply that these spectral intervals may be found from scalar homogeneous problems. In line with our previous work Dieci and Van Vleck (2003), SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 40, 516–542], we emphasize the role of integral separation. Relationships between different spectra are shown, and examples are used to illustrate the results and define types of coefficient matrix functions that lead to continuous Sacker–Sell spectrum and/or continuous Lyapunov spectrum.