A nonstandard description of retarded functional differential equations. (Q701316)

This paper develops a nonstandard description of retarded functional-differential equations (RFDEs). It shows how to use methods from nonstandard analysis to transform the infinite-dimensional RFDE into a formally finite-dimensional problem in the nonstandard sense. The key idea is a nonstandard discretization: a continuous function is represented by a hyper-finite vector, and the solution of the differential equation means an iteration of hyper-finite vectors. The first part of the paper gives the definitions and the relations between the RFDE and the iteration process. The second part develops the linear theory, in particular the spectrum and eigenfunctions are compared for the RFDE and for its discretization. As applications, sharp results are obtained in the linear autonomous case.