Intertwining operators for symmetric hyperbolic systems on globally hyperbolic manifolds (Q2227502)

Symmetric hyperbolic systems are an important class of first-order linear differential operators acting on sections of vector bundles on Lorentzian manifolds. Two of the most important examples of symmetric hyperbolic systems are given by the classical Dirac operator and the geometric wave operator. In the paper the authors introduce a geometric process, via a family of intertwining operators, to compare the solutions of different symmetric hyperbolic systems over (possibily different) globally hyperbolic manifolds. By fixing a suitable parameter, they prove that the resulting intertwining operator preserves Hermitian forms naturally defined on the space of homogeneous solutions. As an application, they study the action of the intertwining operators in the context of algebraic quantum field theory. In particular, they obtain a new geometric proof for the existence of the so-called Hadamard states on globally hyperbolic manifolds.