The splitting of exact sequences of PLS-spaces and smooth dependence of solutions of linear partial differential equations (Q2463524)

In recent years, there has been a great deal of research about applications of homological methods in categories of locally convex spaces to classical problems in analysis, in particular to differential operators. One of the main questions is about the existence of good solution operators for a (continuous linear) surjection \(T:Y\to Z\) between spaces of functions, distributions, ultradistributions, etc. If \(X\) denotes the kernel of \(T\), one thus wants to prove that the short exact sequence \(0\to X \to Y @>T>>Z\to 0\) splits. To do so, one can try to calculate the derivative \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,\cdot)\) of the functor \(\Hom(Z,\cdot)\) on \(X\) (depending on the category under consideration, the derivative can sometimes be constructed by using injective resolutions; but here, the authors use an ad-hoc definition). \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)=0\) means that every short exact sequence \(0\to X \to \widetilde{Y} \to Z\to 0\) of the category splits. Although this question seems to be much more difficult, there are methods to calculate \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)\); in particular, there are very general evaluable conditions ensuring \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)=0\) which are formulated in terms of the semi-norms describing \(X\) and \(Z\). We refer to the reviewer's book [Derived functors in functional analysis. Berlin: Springer (2003; Zbl 1031.46001)] for many such conditions. The splitting theory for the category of Fréchet spaces is well understood: there are complete characterisations of \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)=0\) in terms of the sequences of semi-norms. Note that such results inevitably have to use a lot of quantifiers which might be quite terrifying at first sight. However, since the semi-norms are really the given ``data'' of a concrete problem, the conditions can be evaluated in many important cases. The present article continues this line of research for the category of PLS-spaces, that is, countable projective limits of duals of Fréchet-Schwartz spaces. This class contains almost all non-Banach function spaces appearing in analysis, like spaces \({\mathcal D}'(\Omega)\) of distributions, \({\mathcal D}'_{(\omega)}(\Omega)\) of ultradistributions of Beurling type, \(A(\Omega)\) of real analytic functions, \({\mathcal E}_{\{\omega\}}(\Omega)\) of ultradifferentiable functions of Roumieu type, and many more. Up to now, there are only few splitting results for this category due to Domański and Vogt as well as the reviewer; for instance, it is known that \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)=0\) in the category of PLS-spaces if \(Z\) is (isomorphic to) a subspace of \({\mathcal D}'(\mathbb R)\) and \(X\) is a quotient of \({\mathcal D}'(\mathbb R)\). In a previous article, Bonet and Domański (almost) completely solved the splitting problem if \(Z\) is a Fréchet-Schwartz space. The present work treats the ``dual'' situation where \(Z\) is the dual of a Fréchet-Schwartz space and \(X\) is PLS. Their characterization is, as in the case of Fréchet spaces, a set of inequalities preceded by a list of quantifiers (and also the proof follows a similar strategy, but quite a number of new arguments is needed). It is important that the characterization implies a corollary analogous to the (DN)-(\(\Omega\)) splitting theorem of Vogt and Wagner, and that the analogue of the (dual) (DN)-condition can be verified for kernels of partial differential operators \(P(D)\) with constant coefficients on convex sets. This verification is an amazing combination of PDE techniques showing the surjectivity of \(P(D)\) on the space of vector valued distributions \({\mathcal D}'(\Omega,{\mathcal H}(\mathbb D))\) (as the authors say this result is essentially due to Palamodov) and the necessity part of the authors' characterization of \(\text{Ext}^1(Z,X)=0\). The sufficiency part then allows to deduce that \(P(D)\) is surjective on \({\mathcal D}'(\Omega,F)\) where \(F\) is any nuclear Fréchet space satisfying condition (\(\Omega\)). This includes the case \(F={\mathcal C}^\infty(U)\) for an arbitrary smooth manifold \(U\). It should be noted that the surjectivity of \(P(D)\) on vector valued distributions can be interpreted as a parameter dependence for the solutions of the scalar operator.