Saddle point problems, Bott-Duffin inverses, abstract splines and oblique projections (Q2250759)

The paper is concerned with the saddle-point problem \[ A\sigma + B^* \mu = \eta,\;B\sigma=B\xi \] in a Hilbert space \(\mathcal{H}\), where \(A\) is a positive operator. The problem is equivalent to \[ \begin{aligned} (I-P)A\sigma + B^* \mu &= (I-P)\eta, \\ (PA+I-P)\sigma&=P\eta(I-P)\xi, \end{aligned} \] where \(P\) denotes the orthogonal projection on the nullspace of \(B\). The authors extend results on the solvability of the problem and the determination of minimal norm solutions obtained by \textit{Y.-L. Chen} [Linear Algebra Appl. 134, 71--91 (1990; Zbl 0703.15006)] and \textit{A. V. Knyazev} [Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 196, No. 37--40, 3742--3749 (2007; Zbl 1173.35339)] to the case where the operator \(PA+I-P\) may not have closed range. A~key assumption for the new results to hold is the so-called compatibility of the operator \(A\) and the space \(R(I-P)\), i.e., that \(R(PA+I-P)=R(PA)+R(I-P)\). In an additional section of the paper, the authors study a relation between the compatibility of \(T^*T\) and \(\mathcal{S}\), where \(\mathcal{S}\) is a closed subspace of \(\mathcal{H}\), and general abstract splines defined by \[ \operatorname{sp}_g(T,\mathcal{S},\xi,\eta)=\{ \sigma \in \xi+\mathcal{S}:f(\sigma)=\min_{\psi \in +\mathcal{S}} f(\psi)\}. \]