Irrational approximations and their applications to partial differential equations in exterior domains (Q2479576)

A family of orthogonal systems of irrational functions on the semi-infinite interval is introduced. The proposed orthogonal systems are based on Jacobi polynomials through an irrational coordinate transform. This family offers great flexibility to match a wide range of asymptotic behaviors at infinity. Approximation errors by the basic orthogonal projection and various other orthogonal projections in unbounded domains are established. As an example, a Galerkin approximation using the proposed irrational functions to an exterior problem is analyzed and implemented. Numerical results are presented and confirm the theoretical estimates.