Floquet Theory for Time Scales and Putzer Representations of Matrix Logarithms (Q4801694)

The authors give a Floquet theory for the vector dynamic equation \(x^\Delta=A(t)x\) on a time scale \(\mathbb{T}\), where both \(A(t)\) and \(\mathbb{T}\) are \(p\)-periodic. Since logarithms of matrices play a key role in Floquet theory, the second part of the paper presents some new representations of the principal branch of the matrix logarithm function. Some representations depend on knowledge of the eigenvalues while others depend only on the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial. In the last section, some special logarithms are given, where some property or structure in the choice of a logarithm of a given matrix is presented. In particular, it is shown that the square of a nonsingular matrix with real entries has a logarithm with real entries.