Optimum Lyapunov functions (Q1842541)

This is an interesting paper in the spirit of the Russian school in stability theory which considers the problem of finding an ``optimal'' Lyapunov function for a linear autonomous differential equation. Various optimality criteria are formulated and finding the corresponding Lyapunov functions is reduced to optimization problems: a two-person game or a primal-dual pair of linear programs. The method applies to discrete and stochastic systems as well.