On feedback invariants for linear dynamical systems (Q5932198)

The existence of canonical forms is discussed for orbits of reachable systems under the action of the feedback group in the case of systems over rings. A test of wildness is used, which states that an additive category is wild with respect to a field \(k\) if there exist a full subcategory and a representation equivalence from this subcategory into the wild category whose objects consist of pairs of square matrices over \(k\) with determinants equal to 1. The main result shows that if \(R\) is a commutative ring containing a finitely generated maximal ideal \({\mathfrak M}\) which contains its annihilator, such that every unit of the residue field \(R/{\mathfrak M}\) lifts to a unit of \(R\), then the category of reachable systems over \(R\) is wild with respect to this field. It follows that a canonical form for a reachable system over a PID is unlikely to be found. Obviously, this result applies to systems over the ring of integers or the polynomial ring \(k[X_1,\dots,X_n]\).