A neutral FDE is similar to the product of an ODE and a shift (Q1895149)

Neutral functional differential equations of the form \(x'+ \alpha * x+ \beta* y= f\), \(\gamma * x+ \mu* y= g\), \(x(0)= \xi\); \(x= \phi\), \(y= \psi\) on \(\mathbb{R}^-\), are considered. It is first shown that the equation is well-posed with \(\alpha\), \(\beta\), \(\gamma\) and \(\mu\) locally finite matrix-valued measures if and only if \(\mu\) has an invertible point mass at 0. Then a number of results show that the system specifies two types of semigroups; the extended initial function semigroup and the extended forcing function semigroup, and their generators are determined. (The semigroups are dual in a sense.) In particular, if \((x, y)\) is a solution pair of the system, it is shown that \(T(t) (\phi, \psi, f, g)= (x_t, y_t, f_t, g_t)\) defines a \(C^0\) semigroup. Finally, if \[ {\mathfrak A}* \begin{pmatrix} x\\ y\end{pmatrix}= \begin{pmatrix} x'+ \alpha* x+ \beta* y\\ \gamma* x+ \mu* y\end{pmatrix} \] and \(\Xi\) is the distributional convolution inverse, i.e., \({\mathfrak A} * \Xi= \Xi* {\mathfrak A}=\delta I\), then \(T(t)\) is similar to the left shift \(U(t)\) by \[ T(t)= \begin{pmatrix} T_\Xi & 0\\ 0 & I\end{pmatrix} U(t) \begin{pmatrix} T_{\mathfrak A} & 0\\ 0 & I\end{pmatrix}, \] where \(T_{\mathfrak A}\) is the Toeplitz operator associated with \(\mathfrak A\), provided the system is stable. In the unstable case the unstable part can be removed as a finite-dimensional system leaving a stable part to which the above result applies.