Wave motion in a conducting fluid with a layer adjacent to the boundary, II. Eigenfunction expansions

The wave motion of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) systems can be quite complicated. In order to study the motion of waves in a perfectly conducting fluid under the influence of an external magnetic field in a stratified medium, we make the simplifying assumption that the pressure is constant (to first order). This is the simplest form of the equations with variable coefficients and is not strongly propagative. Alfven waves are still present. The system is further simplified by assuming that the external field is parallel to the boundary. The Green's function for the operator is constructed and then the spectral family is constructed in terms of generalized eigenfunctions, giving four families of propagating waves, including waves “trapped” in the boundary layer. These trapped waves are interesting, since they are not the relics of surface waves, which do not exist in this context when the boundary layer shrinks to zero thickness no matter what (maximal energy preserving) boundary condition is chosen. We conjecture a similar structure for the full MHD problem.

Hyponormal and essentially normal operators

SynopsisLet T be a hyponormal operator on a Hilbert space, so that T*T – TT*≧ 0. Let T have the Cartesian representation T = H + iJ where H has the spectral family {Et} and suppose that EtJ − JEt is compact for almost all t on a Borei set α satisfying E(α) = I. The principal result (Theorem 3) is that under these hypotheses T must be normal. In case T is hyponormal and essentially normal some sufficient conditions are given assuring that, for a fixed t, EtJ − JEt is compact.

Spectral analysis of the Epstein operator

SynopsisThe Epstein operator is defined bywhere x = (x1, …, xn) ∈ Rn, y ∈ R,and H, K, L, M are real constants such that c2(y) > 0. The operator arises in the study of acoustic wave propagation in plane-stratified fluids with sound speed c(y) at depth y. In this paper it is shown that A defines a selfadjoint operator in the Hilbert space ℋ = L2(Rn + 1c−2(y) dx dy) where dx = dx1 … dxn. The spectral family of A is constructed, the spectrum is shown to be continuous and an eigenfunction expansion for A is given in terms of families of improper eigenfunctions.

The square root of a positive self-adjoint operator

One elementary proof of the spectral theorem for bounded self-adjoint operators depends on an elementary construction for the square root of a bounded positive self-adjoint operator. The purpose of this paper is to give an elementary construction for the unbounded case and to deduce the spectral theorem for unbounded self-adjoint operators. In so far as all our results are more or less immediate consequences of the spectral theorem there is little is entirely new. On the other hand the elementary approach seems to the author to provide a deeper insight into the structure of the problem and also leads directly to the spectral theorem without appealing first to the bounded case. Besides this, our methods for proving uniqueness of the square root and of the spectral family seem to be new even in the bounded case. In particular there is no need to invoke representation theorems for linear functionals on spaces of continuous functions.

A polynomial iteration for the spectral family of an operator

Let T be a bounded symmetric operator in a Hilbert space H. According to the spectral theorem, T can be expressed as an integral in terms of its spectral family {Eλ}, each Eλ being a certain projection which is known to be the strong limit of some sequence of polynomials in T. It is a natural question to ask for an explicit sequence of polynomials in T that converges strongly to Eλ. So far as the author knows, no complete solution of this problem has been given even when H has finite dimension, i.e. when T is a finite symmetric matrix. Since a knowledge of the spectral family {Eλ} of a finite symmetric matrix carries with it a knowledge of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, a solution of the problem may have some practical value.