Conical refraction and higher microlocalization (Q1310456)

Since the seminal work of Hörmander appeared back in the late sixties and early seventies, it has become evident to PDE experts that the microlocal point of view was the right framework allowing to study non- elliptic partial differential operators. This becomes almost an impelling necessity if one wants to give results for fairly ``general'' classes of operators with multiple characteristics with variable multiplicity, where, due to the non-regularity of the characteristic set, most classical techniques cannot be applied. The purpose of this monograph is to give results of propagation of the analytic regularity (singularities) for classes of operators with multiple involutive characteristics with variable multiplicity. It is a well known fact that in this case singularities propagate along cones (not along rays, as in the strictly hyperbolic case), giving rise to the classical phenomenon of conical refraction. Since the monograph is fairly long and contains a variety of results as well as of examples, we bound ourselves to just giving the flavor of the techniques employed, mainly that of higher order microlocalization. Let \(x\in\mathbb{R}^ n\) and denote by \(\xi\) its dual variable; let \(\xi^ 0= (0,\dots, 0,1)= e_ n\). Consider a polynomial \(p_ m(\xi)\), homogeneous of degree \(m\) with respect to \(\xi\). Assume that \(p_ m\) vanishes at \(\xi^ 0\) of order \(s\); it is then clear that one of the main objects to study is the localization of \(p_ m\) at \(\xi^ 0\), i.e., roughly speaking, the first homogeneous non-zero polynomial in the Taylor expansion of \(p_ m\) at \(\xi^ 0\): \(p_{m,1} (\xi)= \sum_{| \alpha| =s} \partial_ \xi^ \alpha p_ m (\xi^ 0) (\xi- \xi^ 0)^ \alpha /\alpha!\). \(p_{m,1}\) can be regarded as a polynomial in \(n-1\) variables and it may occur as well that \(p_{m,1}\) has characteristics of variable multiplicity at, say, \(\xi^ 1\in \mathbb{R}^{n-1}\), \(\xi^ 1= (0,\dots, 0,1)\). Denote by \(W^ 1\) the characteristic variety of \(p_{m,1}\), \(\xi\in W^ 1\). The localization process may be iterated giving rise to (higher microlocal objects) \(\xi^ 1, \xi^ 2,\dots,\xi^ k\), \(p_{m,1}, p_{m,2},\dots, p_{m,k}\), and it is continued until \(p_{m,k}\) is an elliptic polynomial. Denote by \(\Lambda\) the lineality of \(p_{m,k}\), i.e. the wedge of the cone \(\{p_{m,k} (\eta)> 0\mid \eta\in \mathbb{R}^ n\}\). Assume that for any chains \((\xi^ 0,\dots, \xi^ k)\), \((p_ m= p_{m,0},\dots, p_{m,k})\) we can find a point \(x\in B\), \(B\) closed convex subset of \(\mathbb{R}^ n\), \(0\not\in B\), \(x\in\Lambda^ \perp\). Then if \(p(x,D_ x)\) is a partial differential operator with principal symbol \(p_ m\) not depending on \(x\) -- this assumption may be somewhat relaxed or formulated in an invariant way in certain specific situations -- and \(u\in{\mathcal D}'\) with \(p(x,D_ x) u=0\), on some conic neighborhood of the point \(\xi^ 0\) and if there exists a positive constant \(t\) such that \(tB\times \{\xi^ 0\}\cap WF_ A u=\emptyset\), we have that \((0,\xi^ 0)\not\in WF_ A u\). The preceding is just a sample of the kind of results contained in the book; many others (mostly due to the author of the notes himself) are contained in this book. A theory of higher microlocalizations along involutive manifolds is constructed from scratch and its equivalence with what is known in the case of second microlocalization is proved. In the process a theory of second order microlocal Fourier integral operators and of higher order pseudodifferential operators is established. The book contains also applications to boundary value problems, transmission problems and partial regularity (analyticity) problems, as well as a detailed reference list.