On the eigenvalues of the spectral second order differentiation operator and application to the boundary observability of the wave equation (Q2473336)

New explicit estimates for the approximation error of the exact eigenvalues of the second order differentiation operator \(A=-\frac{d^2u}{dx^2} \) with the domain \(D(A)=\{u \in H^1(-1,1): u(-1)=u(1)=0\}\) by the eigenvalues of its spectral discretization \(A_N\) are given. The basis of the investigation is the fact that the discrete eigenvalues are the zeros of some Lommel polynomials which are connected with the Bessel functions. Using these new estimates the authors show the spectral discrete analogon of the boundary observability property \[ E(0) \leq C(T)\int_0^T \left| \frac{\partial u(1,t)}{\partial x} \right| ^2dt \] for the energy \[ E(t)=\frac{1}{2}\int_{-1}^1\left(\left| \frac{\partial u(x,t)}{\partial t}\right| ^2 + \left| \frac{\partial u(x,t)}{\partial x}\right| ^2 \right) dx, \] where \(u(x,t)\) is the solution of the one-dimensional wave equation. Analogously to other discretizations the boundary observability estimate of the spectral discretization of the wave equation is not uniform with respect to the discretization parameter, but a uniform estimate can be obtained by the filtering out the highest eigenmodes.