Reduction of Linear Functional Systems using Fuhrmann's Equivalence

Functional systems arise in the treatment of systems of partial differential equations, delay-differential equations, multidimensional equations, etc. The problem of reducing a linear functional system to a system containing fewer equations and unknowns was first studied by Serre. Finding an equivalent presentation of a linear functional system containing fewer equations and fewer unknowns can generally simplify both the study of the structural properties of the linear functional system and of different numerical analysis issues, and it can sometimes help in solving the linear functional system. In this paper, Fuhrmann's equivalence is used to present a constructive result on the reduction of under-determined linear functional systems to a single equation involving a single unknown. This equivalence transformation has been studied by a number of authors and has been shown to play an important role in the theory of linear functional systems.