Two space scattering and propagative systems (Q1096793)

Many wave propagation phenomena of classical physics are governed by systems of partial differential equations of the form \[ E(x)\partial u/\partial t=\sum^{n}_{j=1}A_ j\partial u/\partial x_ j=-iAu, \] where \(x=(x_ 1,...,x_ n)\in R^ n\), u(x,t) is a column vector of length m, and E(x) and the \(A_ j\) are m by m matrices such that E(x) is real, symmetric and uniformly positive definite, and the \(A_ j\) are real, symmetric and constant. The cases \(E(x)=1\) and E(x) uniformly bounded have been studied in the past. In the present article the author continues his interest in the case that E(x) is unbounded. He gives sufficient conditions on E(x) for the operator \(E^{-1}A\) to have a selfadjoint extension H on the Hilbert space \({\mathcal H}_ 1\) with scalar product \((u,v)_ 1=\int v(x)*E(x)u(x)dx\). He then studies the spectrum of H and develops a scattering theory for H. In particular, he gives sufficient conditions for the wave operators to exist and to be complete. For the existence of wave operators a new criterion is presented which generalizes many known results.